The
title pretty much says it all. Sure, I
could come up with reasons (excuses), but they do not matter. The reality is that I made very little
progress over the last week and a half.
Here is what I accomplished:
A
detailed written biography of the protagonist.
This was not as difficult as I imagined.
I guess I already had a good idea of who I wanted the character to be
and his background. I wrote a one page
personality outline and a ten page detailed biography. Maybe that was a little too much. It was a good experience and I feel much more
comfortable working with the character.
I have a few concerns about the character but I will save those for
later.
A
verbal biography of the second main character.
I had to be on the road for about 5-6 hours the weekend before last and
I remembered to bring a voice recorder this time. I started working on the second most important
character. He is a little more
difficult. I know the purpose I want him
to serve in the story and I know the basic personality traits I want him to
have. Beyond that, the character feels a
little bland. I know every character in
fiction does not need a dramatic background, especially if the character is
meant to be an “average Joe”, but average Joe is not developing into an
interesting character. Rather, he is not
interesting yet. I am not sure whether
he needs a re-write or whether I can find the interest in the situation itself
and the character’s reaction to the situation.
The answer is probably a little bit of both.
A
verbal biography of a couple of secondary characters. One of the appeals of this story is that it
does not have a large cast of characters.
I think that makes the story more manageable. Even with a limited cast, there is still a
need for secondary characters. I
verbally walked through two of them.
They are not nearly as detailed as the two main characters.
A
verbal walkthrough of the Prologue and Act One.
I know I jumped ahead a little with this step but I felt myself burning
out examining the characters and needed to work on something else. Act One still feels like it is wandering around
a lot. Things happen, but I feel like
there is a lack of focus.
I
have not transcribed any of this from the voice recorder yet. That is on the to-do list for this week. When I read back over the above I do feel
like I made some progress. However, my
energy/interest level in this project was all over the place and I cannot help
but feel like I am behind where I want to be.
I think part of this is because I seem to be unable to get work done
during the week. All of that was done
over a weekend. I guess that is fine,
but I really want to spend time during the week working too. Just working on the weekends and even then
only working when I am on the road or have free time is going to turn this
already long-term project into an extremely long term project. My idea of allotting two hours a day to
writing has failed miserably. What about
allotting larger chunks of time but fewer times per week? As long as I can get my must-do projects done
on time for my day job that might work.
I am going to have to think about this and see if I can come up with
some solutions.
