Day One - 1,762 words and counting

Change of plans, guys!

It has been pointed out to me (thank you, Michy!) that writing this novel on a public blog would constitute a publication, and would therefore prevent me from ever selling first publication rights. That would suck, so let's not do that.

Instead, I'm writing it on a private blog, by invitation only. This blog can be found at http://1689words.blogspot.com. Feel free to email me for an invitation.

This blog is unlisted, non-searchable, and accessible only by password. And if that counts as publication, well, then so do the Word files on my hard drive.

So here's what I'm doing. All of the commentary about the novel, including my status counter, is staying on this blog. All of the novel text itself is going on the new one. That way I am still posting here on a daily basis, while maintaining the flow of new writing.

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Deep Breath. In... out.... Okay, let's do it.

First, a point of order. I'm going to set a time of 10pm Eastern as my update time every day. Anything I write in the morning will be set with a time delay until that evening, so that I can continue to edit the post until that time. Anything I write after 10pm will go into the next day's stuff.

Now onto the actual composition. My biggest decision was whether to do this in 1st person or 3rd person. I chose 3rd person, but a very limited and internal third person. Still, it gives me to option to do other POVs if necessary. Like in this prologue.

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Not a bad start, for my first day. I'm satisfied with what I've written, although I must admit, I'm itching to go back and edit what I've done so far. I will resist the temptation, though. You've got to understand, this is more raw and unfinished than I've ever let anyone read. Usually I edit almost as I write, paying attention to both language and content, but I don't think I'll be able to reach my goal if I do that. There will be plenty of time later to obsess over word choice.

The prologue was invented entirely on the spot. I picked Merona's POV because it sounded right, and threw her out into a snowy night to see what happened. I think I learned a lot about her character just by watching how she acted, faced with this crisis. I like how she turned out. I pretty much finished her part this morning.

The Lowell POV came about during my lunch hour. I revised the last paragraph of Merona's section and shifted the POV to someone else, who gave a few tidbits of information about the culture. I just liked the idea of this seemingly dead girl coming to life in his arms and scaring the bejeezus out of him. This is the section that needs the most work, in my opinion, but it can wait.

I've only barely begun the events of chapter one. These have been percolating in my head for years... at least four years, which is when the early bits of this story first came to me. This is the scene that almost convinced me to write in first person, but I think the third person narration has been strong so far. I'm ending at a place where I could keep going if I wanted, which should make it that much easier to begin again tomorrow morning.

Today's Total: 1,762 words
Progress to Date: 1,762 / 1,689 words (104.3%)
Total Progress: 1,762 / 52,347 words (3.4%)