It’s been a pretty good vacation. We went on a few day trips–to Orlando to visit a friend, to Tampa for Lowry Park Zoo and mouth-watering lunch at Grass Root, and to Sarasota for an afternoon at the Selby Botanical Gardens. I swam almost every morning, and we’ve eaten healthy meals, so I’ve avoided gaining weight. And I’ve written every day, adding over 8,000 words to NHI and writing another 2,000 or so on other projects.
NHI is now at about 36,000 words. The original target was 70,000, but I’m already nearing the 3/4 mark on the outline. The usual pattern is the culprit–my initial drafts tend to be heavy on dialog and internalization, very light on any sort of setting and description. In revision, I’ll beef up the weaker elements. I also have a subplot in mind to add that will enhance the main plot. But revision won’t be for at least six months after I finish the first draft. I have plenty of other projects that need attention in the mean time.
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1 Terry Odell // Sep 16, 2009 at 8:01 am
I had 2 weeks away, more or less. We were home for the intervening weekend, but that was spent transitioning from one trip to the next.
The first was to St. Augustine where hubby had a meeting. I ensconced myself in the hotel room and worked like crazy on dealing with my own discovery of who the villain in my mystery was. (No, I don’t plot much in advance, much less outline!). He was clearly on the page with means and opportunity; I just had to beef up a motive and then tweak for continuity.
The next trip was a cruise (gift from a couple of our kids as an anniversary present), and there I did absolutely nothing for the book. Didn’t even think about dealing with the climactic scenes which were giving me grief before we left. And I’m on the ‘long’ side — at 80K words already — so I’m going to have to get it wrapped up soon.
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