Write to Live and Live to Write

Monday’s post was late because I forgot to publish. Yesterday, I wrote most of a new chapter 1 of Starjackers, and set up a series in Medium (You need to do another) and now I am trying to catch up.

I lost count of how much I wrote today, though I appear to be around 1500+ words on StarJackers. I also added the Romance subplot. Ven Aleyo has changed from my original idea and is now a Subspecies living on the colony of Venice, a mostly water world with cites built around the few pieces of ground that rise above the waves of floating cities. As I see the planet, It is an old world where plate tectonics has ceased.

In Medium, I have created to Series that are used to showcase the articles and stories. I am happy with those.

Wow. I made a snap decision to finish Spell Thief as another Novella, eventually reaching about 35 thousand words. It took me a bit to get into it, but once I started, I think it came along very well. Spell Thief was going to be the first of a fantasy series, anyway, and it is a perfect match to Starjackers. I am setting my goal with Spell Thief to 500 words a day.

Today, I wrote well in excess of 2000 words. I admit that I am very happy where things are heading. I really want to reach a point where I have several books in Amazon, and hopefully start bringing in a bit of money.

Seventy-five-hundred words into the first Novella of a trilogy, writing my first big disaster, with all kinds of conflict and I realize I do not know who the antagonist is. Of course, neither does my protagonist, but that is no excuse. I am neither a character in the story or a reader. How can I write a good disaster if I can not put a name to the instigator of the loss? Perhaps disasters should be explained.
Segway to the Snowflake Method.

Snowflake is an outlining method that divides the novel into four parts. Each of the first three parts ends in a disaster where the character faces a disaster, and metaphorically or in reality is slapped in the forehead with failure and reevaluates his entire life as he sees it.
I may have exaggerated there, of course, but if you take each of these disasters and call them setbacks, you will get to a more conventional way of teaching outlining. I highly suggest that writers check out his Snowflake Method. It may not be for you, but it teaches a great way to think of novel writing.
Oh, and Pantsers, I suggest you get the book, also. No, no, no, I don’t mean you should give up your way of writing. While Pantsing a novel or a short story, or editing said works, they are a great way of thinking out where your character is in the story.

In my case, I have the novella plotted out, I know how it will end, I know there are two groups after what he doesn’t know he has, and Eureka. I now know who the the Antagonist is in the first novella. It is right there in my plans as a subplot. Now, I know that it is critical.

The best way to work out a story problem when you slam hour nose against it is to write it out. Got to run.

Stay tuned for the Knowledge’s Ashes Universe Part I: Starjacker.