Thursday, August 30, 2012

Chapter 8: Prosecutions - Status Update 2

The more I move forward, the more I realize I need to fix things behind me.

I was going through my outline to incorporate the various chicken-scratch notes I've added as I work my way through the outline and discovered a discrepancy in how I'm notating time passing.  I did not have a particular date for the start of the novel, so rather than get bogged down, I just started listing the date for each scene as a function of time passed since the beginning of the book.  So, for instance, the first scene in Chapter 8 happens on (+7 months, +1 week, +3 days).  Easy and simple to count and I know how long passes between any two scenes in the novel.

The tricky part is the first and last week of a month.  The first week is the +0 weeks and the last week is +3 weeks, days +1 to +7.  Well, I forgot that in the middle of Chapter 6 and have a month with five weeks or 35 days.  Every date after that one is off by a full week.  Pain. In. The. Ass.

I'll straighten this out when I finish the first draft and go back for the first edit.  In the meantime, I've corrected the "dates" for Chapter 8 and they will be correct for the end of the first draft.  As I'm writing this chapter, I'm realizing I'm going to need to telescope the time covered as there are several trials happening.  Some will be important, some will be necessary background, but they will all take time.  Plus, I just want to discuss outcomes, not add "in court" scenes.  Probably.  We'll see what it looks like when I finish the draft and then tweak it like everything else.

Word Count: 60,062 words

I'm only averaging one evening a week for writing, which seems to be drawing this out, but I only have so many Husband Points to spend at any one time.  I'm hoping to be done with the first draft by the end of September and start mapping out the timeline to see what kind of tangles I've left for myself.  Then I can start plugging in the scenes I "missed" as I was writing or decided I needed to expand on.

I've been looking at a program called Scrivener, particularly the Windows version.  I've been writing in MS Word as it is what I use for my day job and I'm very proficient in it.  That said, Word is word processing software, not writing software and there are things Scrivener does that I want for the editorial pass, like being able to move entire scenes in a drag and drop fashion on a virtual cork board.  Plus, Scrivener exports in multiple formats, like .mobi, which is something I want to be able to do on my own.  I haven't decided how I want to publish, but I want options.

That's it for now.  Later!


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