Into the Dark
All right. The (final, maybe? hopefully?) outline of Dangerous is done. I’ve tweaked it as much as I can without actually starting to write the damn thing. Writing begins tomorrow. I’m terrified. However, I can already see the shape of things to come. Even the outline has more tension and peril than the rough draft. I’ve removed extraneous plot bits and jammed it full of character conflict. Will it be enough to make a story I like out of this mess? No way to tell except to write and see what happens.
By my calculations I need to write about 6 pages a day to have the novel done by the time classes start. I’d like to have a draft I can hand to people by then. I’m not sure how feasible having a manuscript worthy of trying to sell by December is at this point, but I’ve got nothing to lose in trying to get it done. Hopefully if my readers can get me comments within a month (and if the novel isn’t totally broken again), I can power through some mad editing and get a semblance of a decent book ready for queries. It’s bad that I still don’t have any idea how I’d sum up the plot in a couple sentences, isn’t it? Oh well, maybe by end of this draft I’ll have that nailed. And a decent title. Because “Dangerous” is a stupid title. I suppose I could call it “Casimir” (the name of the city it takes place in) or some variation on that. “Casimir Conflict”? “Casimir Hypogean”? I don’t know. Any ideas?
I’m aiming for 18 pages this week, then 30 each week after. And I’m taking weekends off, damnit. I will not burn out. This is do or die time now. It’s unlikely I’m ever going to have as much free time ever again as I do now. Plus it will give me a decent feel for how well this whole writing for a living thing might work someday if I’m fortunate (and persistent) enough to be able to do it full time.