It’s 0730 right now My fiancee brought me a coffee since she thought it was a good idea to get up early on a Sunday for some thing she’s doing today.

I have not started writing on my novel, yet. But I do have a coffee-cake muffin. So that’s something.

Let me tell a little about what’s been happening here.

What have I done?

Week one’s over boys and girls. My current word count is 24,534, just shy of the half-way mark. My plot’s chugging along nicely, also hovering around the 50% point. Matter of fact, my heroine, Cade Stern, finished the latest scene with the iconic words, “This is my choice to make.” Couldn’t be a better point for her to finally stop letting others walk all over her.

So far in the story, we have felt what it’s like to merge your mind with a machine, controlling it as if it was your own body. We had an anxiety attack that ended in a seizure-like experience, debated consciousness with a computer program, and had near-nightmarish visions of our dead brother inside a virtual system. We also inching closer to a conspiracy involving a military founded mega corporation, had to deal with a crusty old clothing vendor, and lost pretty much every bit of life we once knew. Add to that some high-risk prototypes, rescue missions going wrong, some quantum mechanics yada yada, unwanted cybernetic implants, and a young girl taking a strange interests, and we’re are sure to feel really, really fucked up at this point.

Looking at my plan, I have about 5,000 words left to wrap up part two. Sounds doable. In fact, I think it’ll be perfect. After everything went wrong, Cade and her “friends” have to go an make things right. A dangerous mission to the moon, where said conspiring mega corp has their lunar base. And, of course, not only will this make for some great entertainment, it will also go painfully sideways. And at the end of it, a potentially big reveal, turning the story on its head and twisting its limbs around its own body.

What have I learned?

Writing a lot is great. But motivation alone ain’t cutting it. Discipline, that’s where it’s at. I spend more time thinking about writing than I do with actually putting down words. I know what I want to do. I’m just not doing it when I should.

It’s like a contained micro version of my usual writing process (or lack thereof). My first day, I spat out over 10,000 words. Granted, I fucked up some important details in the story, which is bugging me. But nothing that can’t be fixed later. Made some notes and comments on the chapters needing the rewrite, and that’s good for now.

Yesterday, I pushed over 6,000. In-between? Meh and hmm. Not that I expect much during my workdays (my lowest was 140 words during that time), but on my first day off, I should be able to do more.

Whatever.

I’m way ahead of the self-challenge, which, I guess, is part of the problem.

I’ve got time. The deadline isn’t enough to cause heart attacks, yet.

But that’s just me being complain-o-pants. In reality, I did good. 25,000 words in 6 days is a feat, don’t let anyone tell me different. Following some of my favourite authors on the Twitters, I did better than they usually do (the difference being that they always write and make money doing it, and I, well, aren’t).

Not only did I write a lot, I also wrote well. I think I did, anyways. Even the parts I fucked up felt good as I wrote them. Sure, things’ll have to change, and one chapter already has an ugly, red flag hovering over it (literally), but they were still written well. The plot’s coming together, making a lot more sense than I thought it would. I even had a great AHA moment.

You know, the moment when it clicks?

In part two, I planned on having two major events happening. Event 1, then Event 2. Problem was, I didn’t know how transition them well. I thought Event 1 would resolve, and then, through the magic of story-power, Event 2 would come about. Forced, ugly, not good, boo.

But then it all made sense to me. Event 1 has to not only end up unresolved, it has to go hilariously wrong, so that Event 2 is the only reasonable way to fix anything at all.

Tadaa.

Makes sense afterwards. Duh. No shit. How else, even? And I call myself a writer…

Anyways.

I’ve learned what I knew already: Best stories don’t connect their events by the words AND, or THEN, but buy phrases like BECAUSE OF THAT, CAUSING THIS. Like, Event 1 happened, and because of that, Event 2 will happen. Event 2’s causing Event 3. Not just a string of Event 1 and then Event 2 and Event 3, blah blah. Makes sense?

No?

Read it again. There’s profound stuff in there. Trust me.

Trust me!

What do I do now?

How nice of you to ask!

Well, write, of course.

My goal for this weekend was to crack to thirty-kay mark. 30,000 words. That’ll finish part 2. Hopefully. Might go over a slight bit. But that’s fine.

Then, two days of work (I know, I’m so hard done by). 12 hours each, though. Wednesday is off because of it’s Remembrance day here in Canada.

Hopefully, I can use those two days of work (quote-unquote) to plot the next course through part 3. It’s labeled Deus Ex Machina, remember? Big reveal, bigger twist, all hell breaks loose, cats and dogs having sex in the rain and whatnot?

Will be great.

To be honest, part 3 has the least amount of vision at this point. I knew what part 1 was. In detail. I knew what part 2 should be, like a diamond in the rough. I know what part 4 will become, or at least, where it all will end. Part 3, meh. I know the twist, the reveal. Because of that, though, I should be preparing a bit more before jumping in. Else I just write shit on the fly that’ll not make sense in the bigger picture.

---

That’s that.

Week 1’s over.

What’s your experience been? Tell me. Talk to me.

Trust me, goddamnit!