Delays, Delays, Delays

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.