Day 118 a - Switching gears again

Been at this for almost one third of a year and I have picked up a few things, mostly that when I have a clear idea of the characters it's easy to write them and that's easy enough.

When I have a clear idea of the scene and why it needs to happen that is easy enough.

When I need to change direction it is unsettling and sometimes ideas need to brew.

I can think about several things at once, I rarely concentrate on one thing, though I had the most fun writing Darwin's Game for obvious reasons - I knew what was happening every step of the way, but I discovered people along the way and put them in and out of the story, that was the challenge there.

With the first one I was feeling my way every step as I only had the vaguest Idea up to about the end of the first third and then it was all free form.

In Budgee Springs I know the town, the plot and the people pretty well. The issue is that it started life as a film script years ago, a comedic farce which I no longer find funny. It had become a love story between two senior citizens with every thing else going on around that. I think I need a few weeks break from it, I'm about a third of the way through the plot as a whole but it is beginning to diverge to a better place I think, but I'll need some time away from it to think about it and be eager to come back to it.

In the mean time I have been thinking back to Babel and am going to jump back into that, I have had a thought or two I want to pursue so I might just spend a few days on that again.

By sheer coincidence (or by right of some mental barrier I don;t know about) I stopped at chapter 13 both times to take a 'rest'.

So far I have written:

118 days straight.
232,137 words
Average of 1,984 words per day
Completed 2 novels
Partially completed two more.