A Sucessful Session

Today’s writing went pretty well – finished two chapters in the full hour of writing, which surprised me. Chapter three went especially fast, and felt right. My main worry is that I’m rushing into the story too quickly – in the first three chapters, we’ve had our hero introduced, nearly executed and then a lot of exposition dropped on us by a thoroughly insane wizard with his psychotic soul-devouring owl. We’ll stick with it, though – there’s no sense in starting over, not when I’m already at such a good start.

Procrastinated again, the sessions weren’t really consecutive. I think the only way I’m going to write for a full hour at a time (knowing me) is to jump bump the timer up to a full hour, sit down and go nuts. I’m not quite ready to go that far yet, so…at least the writing is getting done. I just have to find a way to motivate me to do it earlier, instead of in the evenings. Also, it seems to be becoming a habit to write these blogs after I do the writing session, which I don’t think I like all that much.

I’m going to share the first three chapters with some friends, and see what they think about it, before I get too wrapped up in chapter four – though I’m starting to get a feel for where the story is heading. I’m just really worried that I’m moving too quickly and that the audience doesn’t have time to settle in and get to know the character. I’m not going to worry about it, for the time being. Just write it, I really want to have a complete draft instead of continually stressing about the first few chapters. I want to step back and assess the work as a whole before I decide anything. 

I feel I’m too close to the story, which I why I need to share it with people I trust, who can give me some feedback on where it’s going, and if they think it’s going somewhere interesting. 

Let’s press on with the story – I’m enjoying writing and am not getting any sense that what I’m penning on paper isn’t really working. I suspect that there’s going to be a lot more backstory – more recent backstory – that starts appearing in the next few chapters, while we angle towards the first major plot hook. 

I’m also thinking that the setting is probably going to become the basis for a D&D campaign (I play twice monthly currently and will eventually step as a GM), so I have some ideas running in the back of my mind while I write the main story out. 

I’ve always found the early chapters the toughest to write – finding that balance of new characters and plot hooks to get us moving. Plus, they’re kind of a drag whenever I have all these cool scenes and exciting moments planned, as well as all these slower moments with this fascinating character development. It’s difficult, but a good introduction is critical, so I hope it works out. I hope it’s not too rushed, though we’re not really through it yet.

I haven’t gotten to the main character’s backstory yet – I have a few ideas floating around in my head for what that is, and I’m also interested in knowing more about this Wizard character. I don’t know if I’d call him a mentor or not, but he’s the one who sets the character off on a plot. It didn’t take him long to become quite insane – I get the feeling there’s some good backstory behind him too, but he’s not even going with the main character on the journey so…

This is going to lead to interesting places, I can just tell – this is also turning out to be one of the longer blog entries. I had a lot to ramble about today. That, or I’m getting better at going on about nothing in particular.

So, other topics – not directly related to writing: today is my birthday. Hooray! 

Oh, and thanks for reading.