If you’ve been hanging around lately, you’ve heard me complain about writing at the speed of a thundering herd of reluctant turtles. (Actually I’m not sure I’ve complained here. Anyway. Complaining. Turtles. Herd. Onward.) I’ve been whining about my Goodreads story. I wanted to toss out a quick fun story that readers hopefully would enjoy as much as I did. Instead I’ve passed 20k and I’m only halfway through my plan.
There’s a point to this, besides the fact that KD is not good at guessing wordcount in advance. The thing is, I’ve been trudging through the set-up. Lukas and Alan are completely new to me, and so is their world. Yes, it’s set in the “real” world, but that doesn’t actually limit the work of worldbuilding. I have to research. I have to decide what I’m using and what I’ll tweak just a little to suit the story. If and how I’ll explain what I’ve done, or just hope people chalk it up to writer’s prerogative.
Starting a story is so much fun because there are tons of choices. Each one changes my ending in some way, and I can’t always see how it will affect things. Sometimes I go with the random idea and it turns out amazingly–Alan’s fear of dogs, for instance. It came out of nowhere and I went with it and I like it. Other things, like Lilia’s college professor past, not so much. I may yet use it, but I’m halfway through and it’s unmentioned, so it’s doubtful. Sometimes–not so far in this story, thankfully!–I make a choice that just doesn’t work, and I have to go back and cut it out and cut out or change everything relating to it…
So anyway. Dreadfully slow in the beginning, but now I’m picking up speed. I wrote 2k on Friday despite working most of the day. I wrote 2k yesterday. I’m going to write more today, as I have quibbled just a little more writing time out of my declaration since the kid won’t be home till 1 p.m. I’ll start editing when she starts cleaning the bathroom. (Or at least, after I have told her to clean the bathroom. We’ll see how that goes.)
Set-up is hard. The straight-away is fun. Keep writing.