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Kane's Mutiny

Lou_SytsmaLou_Sytsma
edited January 2008 in A novel in progress
I started a new novel this morning with this working title. The main character is Benjamin Kane. I published a short story under this title that might have been read by 10 people, so I'm using elements from the story in the novel, as well as elements of another unpublished story.



I did a great deal of research for this last fall and I've been ruminating on the story for a while and decided to start of 2008 with a novel.



I didn't get a great deal done this morning as it took a while for me to set up the new document and inherit all my custom styles, but even 720 words is a decent morning's work -- at that pace it would take a little over 100 days to reach my goal of 75000 words. I'm sure there will be better days, and days when I get nothing done, but I'm going to aim for 1000/day when I can manage it.



Here's the progress-o-meter:





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Comments

  • Lou_SytsmaLou_Sytsma
    Awesome Bev! 8-)



    Good luck!



    Will be watching with interest.
  • BevVincentBevVincent
    A good, solid morning. A tad over 1200 words. I revised what I wrote yesterday a little before I started on the new material today. A lot is going on in the first chapter, so the writing is fast and furious.



  • BevVincentBevVincent
    Nearly a thousand words today. I had a short story submission to handle as well, so that ate up a bit of my time.



    One more morning and I should be finished the first chapter. I have to do a little bit of research into neck wounds, which I can hopefully get finished this evening in preparation for tomorrow's session.



  • Lou_SytsmaLou_Sytsma
    Bev_Vincent wrote: I have to do a little bit of research into neck wounds


    Neck wounds eh? Knife, gun, animal, or vampire ;)?
  • BevVincentBevVincent
    Knife, as it happens.
  • BevVincentBevVincent
    This morning was a bit of a surprise. I didn't think I was going to get much done as I'm still waiting on some research material. So I decided that rather than waste the morning completely, I would go back and revise the material to date. I knew there were a few things I wanted to add, as well as fleshing out detail and description, which I tend to scrimp on during the first pass.



    At the end of the session, I'd added another thousand words, so it was just like an ordinary writing session after all.



  • teatonmillteatonmill
    Good luck with the new novel i am sure it will be great. 720 words is better than 0. The hard part is over - You have begun.

    I am sure i heard once before some one said "A book has a beginning a middle and and end. So you you are a third of the way there.
  • BevVincentBevVincent
    Plugging along. I finished the first chapter. Actually, I decided to end the chapter a few sentences back from where I finished yesterday morning, after a little revision. Seemed like a natural place to end, on a note of tension.



    I completed my research last night and found a couple of really nice details to add. I'm always delighted when I discover interesting factoids.



  • BevVincentBevVincent
    I had one day this weekend where I didn't get any work done at all, but I'm still making decent progress. Finished chapter two and well into the beginning of chapter 3.



  • BevVincentBevVincent
    I woke up early this morning, so I had a little extra writing time. I'm also importing a little bit of material from the short story that was the basis for this novel, which helped me along a little, though I had to revise that old material extensively so it's not much different from writing it from scratch.



  • BevVincentBevVincent
    I've probably finished another chapter, but at this point I'm just writing down the story and I'll worry more about the structure at some point in the future. I've reached a section that borrows heavily from the original short story, so my word count will probably increase significantly tomorrow, though I have to revise the old material. My concept of the main character has changed quite a bit, so I have to make sure some of his foibles, which worked okay when I was only going to have to deal with him for 5000 words instead of 75000, get tamed down.



  • BevVincentBevVincent
    I worked on a scene lifted directly from the original story and made some modifications to it as I blended it into the manuscript. That scene is the one where the main character really finds his voice, so it's an important one to me in terms of the general tone of the story. Before too much more time passes, I'm going to print out what I've got done so far and go back to make sure I've got the voice consistent in the material I've written so far.



  • BevVincentBevVincent
    Another thousand words, good forward progress. I won't be at the computer at all tomorrow, so that's it for my second week working on the novel. Back at it on Sunday or Monday.



  • Lou_SytsmaLou_Sytsma
    Good stuff Bev! You are really trucking on!
  • BevVincentBevVincent
    Trucking along. I didn't get any work done on Saturday or Sunday, but wrote another 1000 words this morning.



  • BevVincentBevVincent
    I'm into Chapter 6 and past the 20% point of the intended word count. I had a dream last night that I finished the book, but it was only 35,000 words long. That's almost a nightmare!



  • BevVincentBevVincent
    Into Chapter 7.



  • BevVincentBevVincent
    Chapter 7 is running really long. I'd like to break it up somehow, but I haven't figured out what to do about that yet. Guess that's what revision is for.



  • BevVincentBevVincent
    The end of another week and the end of another chapter.



  • Lou_SytsmaLou_Sytsma
    8-)



    Tally ho!
  • BevVincentBevVincent
    Not a bad morning:



  • BevVincentBevVincent
    I didn't think I'd managed to write much this morning, but when I did a count at the end, I'd increased the tally by 1200 words. Finished off Chapter 8 and started on Chapter 9.



  • BevVincentBevVincent
    I spent some time refreshing my memory about research material last night to prepare myself for this morning's session. I've reached the section of the book where I'm leaving all traces of the inspiring short story behind, so this is uncharted territory. I feel almost as at sea as my protagonist!



  • BevVincentBevVincent
    For a while I thought this morning was going to be a bust, as I got distracted doing other things and I didn't have a clear idea what I was going to write about. Then I opened the document and just started writing. 1500 words! In my first month working on the book, I've accomplished about 1/3 of the book's predicted lenght. I'm content.



  • BevVincentBevVincent
    Not quite as productive as yesterday, but Fridays rarely are. I almost skipped this morning's session, but I got up and plugged away at the start of Chapter 11 and left things in a good place to pick up again on Sunday or Monday.



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