Morning Star Rising

20,079 / 150,000 (13.4%)

A bit of progress yesterday. I'm feeling cranky today because I've just gotten to the big catalyst and I'm at page 93 in my manuscript (53 according to my MM template--which, for those that are curious, is based on my copy of the Summers at Castle Auburn in mass market, for it looks rather typical, the font not too small or too big, and no crowded margins), well outside the 30-50 pages I mentioned earlier. But I'm inclined to think that I'm laying too much importance in that. This is epic fantasy after all, and it was pointed out by one commenter that for most epic fantasies, the catalyst comes around page 100 rather than within the first fifty pages. That's not to say that I couldn't cut back, though probably not enough to get it down to the first 50 pages of manuscript. Yep, I'm stressing unnecessarily and should probably get off this kick and just get this draft done.

So, here's today's excerpt:

 

Morning Star Rising

16,709 / 150,000 (11.1%)

Good progress yesterday, and I even got to spend a couple hours playing the Playstation. I'm starting on chapter 4 today, which is actually chapter 6 in the old draft (minus the first half of chapter 6, which I'm cutting). I've got some new stuff to add before getting to the big scene, but the plot's moving along nicely. Here's today's excerpt:

 

 

Morning Star Rising

14,237 / 150,000 (9.5%)

Had a pretty decent day yesterday, finished chapter 2 and am halfway through chapter 3. I'm having some difficulty figuring out what exactly is the catalyst for my story, for there's quite a few "catalysts" that happen at the begin that get the story rolling for certain characters. One happens before the story actually starts, though the protag finds out about it within the first couple of pages (its the thing that spurs the elusive big bad to formulate his nasty plans), then there's a catalyst in chapter 3, which pushes villain into acting ahead of time, then there's the thing I think is the catalyst for the protag, the nail in the coffin of her childhood so speak but it's brought about by catalyst #2. I think the talk of catalysts over at Pubrants is just confusing me (because this is a very multi-layered story and there's a ton of important stuff going on that the protag will not know about until much later) and I should just stop looking at it and stop worrying about it. Not that my worrying has caused me to change my plans of how I was going to rewrite the beginning; I am still following my original plans for it, but I'm worrying far too much about whether that thing that I think is the actual catalyst will fall outside the first fifty pages of the book (not first 50 of manuscript. We're already well past that point). Anyway, I am enjoying the rewrite. And so today's excerpt:

 

 

Morning Star Rising

9,236 / 150,000 (6.2%)

So I actually got quite a bit done yesterday, for it wasn't quite as warm out as I thought it would be (and once it did get really warm, everybody was too busy doing other things to go on a walk, so I settled for working). And so, today's excerpt:

 

 

Morning Star Rising

5,943 / 150,000 (4.0%)

Made a decision yesterday that I didn't need the end of chapter 1, or the first half of chapter 2 since it doesn't really push the plot forward, and the bits that worked with character were for characters that I'm not doing anything with in this version. So I decided to just skip on ahead to the first big conflict scene between our hero and the villain (well, one of the villains, but he's the major one) and I'm liking how the character dynamics are shaping up.

Here's today's excerpt:

 

I've decided to experiment a bit with posting small excerpts of what I'm working on, no more than a couple hundred words at a time, along with my daily progress. I've seen other folks do it, and though typically I don't read excerpts, I get that some folks like to and so maybe folks would be interested in seeing bits and pieces of what I'm working on.

My big project at the moment is the second rewrite of my novel Morning Star Rising, and the following is an excerpt from what I wrote yesterday: