A Drink in the Desert

Just checking in again on my third day without consistent internet access. I've been taking advantage of this enforced break to do both editing and plotting. The edit is only a quick edit, using a red marker to indicate passages that need work (along with an idea of what needs to be fixed) and a green marker to note bits that I think I did particularly well on. There's more red than green, but the green lets me know I can just skip over that passage in my first round of editing.

As for plotting, I'm pretty much going through and layering in details in the first novel that I feel could be improved or reordered, then drawing those threads through to where they need to go in the subsequent novels. I've also started to further develop the character of the central enemy of the story, whom we have not even met yet. Still, at some point we'll learn how profound of an effect he has had on the story all along. He will be introduced clearly in the second novel, and will rise to prominence in the third.

To be honest, I had not planned for him, but he makes perfect sense. I feel like there was a hole in the story that he has filled perfectly, and that I was planning him subconsciously whether I knew it or not.

By the way--Bryony's story does not exactly end at the end of the novels I've planned. No, there will not be another novel that features her as the sole main character, but I have a vague, overarching idea for other stories set in this world, and once those stories are told, a novel which would sum them all up that would definitely include Bryony. I think that this world is large enough to play in for a long, long time, and it would be entirely possible to write novels set in this world for years to come.

As for right now, though, I need to concentrate on editing, picking up the loose threads, and plotting... oh, and getting a replacement computer so that I can go about catching up.

By the way, I have decided that I do want to catch up. There have been three days now that my 1,689 word a day goal has not been met, and I don't want that state of affairs to continue indefinitely. So when the time comes that I can write full time again, I will try to write extra days worth of material and start filling in those gaps. I've done it before to get ahead, and I can do it again to catch up.