Daily Archives: November 10, 2006

IMFC Update

Total word count, Il Maestro e le Figlie di Coro: 16,054
Total words today: 2,667

All I wanted to do today was sleep. It’s a good thing I had summarised in a single paragraph one of the events I wanted to occur at some point, because I defaulted to writing that event today. And it produced ten pages of interesting interaction and development, and the potential for repercussions, emotional and otherwise.

I’m currently struggling with point of view — sometimes the narrative wants to follow someone who isn’t a main character, which shouldn’t happen. I’ve got a limited omniscient narrator that focuses on a single character, which can make things difficult if the event I’m writing about is centered on someone else. It creates the need for reporting off-stage action, which is hard to write and keep interesting.

Off to pick up the boy, now. And no writing tonight! This story’s been driving my brain too hard, and as a result I’ve been getting to bed late because I’ve been setting down the bones of the story before it vanishes.

Release

I’m about to move the herbal and pregnancy books off the reference shelf within arm’s reach of my desk, where I keep the books I need at a moment’s notice during whatever project I’m currently writing. This is somewhat of a ritual, because it’s a sign of me finally completely releasing whatever’s been eating my brain for the past however many months.

The books that will be staying there are the ones at the far end, the ones on swans and mills and late medieval technology. And the ones I will add this afternoon are the ones on Vivaldi and music and Baroque-era life, for this new novella which is now threatening to turn into a full-length YA historical novel, one that may well have publication potential when I’m done and it’s been revised.

Once the initial furious output on this story calms down, I’m looking forward to being able to go back and forth between it and Swan Sister. And early in the new year I’d like to go back to rewriting the Pandora book, too, and finally writing the end now that I’ve figured it out.