To the Sixes

Facing Fearful Odds -- Book 1: Walk the Earth (10 chapters planned)

Chapter 1 is 100% and UNDERGOING OMEGA EDIT. (11,126 words)
Chapter 2 is 100% and UNDERGOING OMEGA EDIT (15,403 words)
Chapter 3 is 100% and UNDERGOING OMEGA EDIT. (7,392 words)
Chapter 4 is 100% and in GOLD BETA. (16,416 words)
Chapter 5 is 100% and in GOLD BETA (27,041 words)
Chapter 6 is 100% and is UNDERGOING BETA (35,976 words)
Chapter 7 is 50% done. (18,135 words)
Chapter 8 is 0% done. (98 words)
Chapter 9 is 15% done. (2,658 words)
Chapter 10 is 5 % done. (1,147 words)

Total Project Status as of 9/1/2009: Book 1 is 50% done, with five chapters remaining. (72,030 words)
Total Project Status as of 10/1/2009: Book 1 is 56% done, with a little over four chapters remaining. (106,859 words) (+ 34,829)
Total Project Status as of 11/1/2009: Book 1 is 67% done, with a little over four chapters remaining. (113,544 words) (+ 6,685)
Total Project Status as of 12/1/2009: Book 1 is 72% done, with three chapters remaining. (121,097 words) (+ 7,553)
Total Project Status as of 1/1/2010: Book 1 is 75% done, with three chapters remaining. (135,392 words) (+14,295 words)

Comments: December was a surprisingly productive month, especially considering the last week and a half have been eaten up by holiday family stuff. I didn't even realize I had managed to run over ten thousand words until I added up the totals for Chapter 7-A and -B. While December doesn't match the outrageous productiveness of September's monthly total, it does warm my heart to have gotten over the OH MY GOD WHY WON'T THIS CHAPTER F___ING DIE that was two months spent on writing Chapter 6.

Chapter 7 is coming along swimmingly, although it's a tale that's grown in the telling. Originally I had the outline broken into 3 parts. However, considering the hell I put the characters through in Chapters 5 and 6, I found I needed more time to for the cast to decompress and emotionally deal with what they've been through. So now Chapter 7 will be four parts long -- A, B, C, and D.


(P.S. I'm posting this month's review early because I don't want to be blogging on New Years.)

It's almost November, which means National Novel Writer's Month is about to begin.

Now, originally, I was planning on have you guys -- my loyal (or intermittent) blog readers -- pick the 50,000 fanfic I was going to write out of three options. Alas, Facing Fearful Odds still isn't done, so I can't take November off.

But here's what I'm going to do in November. I am going to finish Facing Fearful Odds: Book 1... and then, however many words I have left out of that 50,000, I'm going to start writing Book 2 and KEEP WRITING until I do 50,000 words total for FFO in November.

Yes, yes. I know this isn't quite in the spirit of NaNoWriMo, but it's what I'm doing it, so screw the rules. I'm going to write 50,000 words worth of prose for Facing Fearful Odds in November. I'm going to finish Book 1, because it has less than fifty thousand words left in it, and then I'm going to start Book 2.

This does NOT mean I am abandoning Taking Sights. After I've hit my 50,000 word goal and the final chapters of FFO are away at the beta, I fully intend to begin writing the final ten chapters of Taking Sights.  I've said several times on this blog that I would finish Taking Sights after I had FFO: Book 1 done... and I'm still saying that. Once Taking Sights is done, I'll be going back to work on FFO: Book 2, carrying on from whatever chapter/point I'm at whichI finally hit that 50,000 word goal for NaNoWriMo.

So here's what I'm going to be doing. Tomorrow, on November 1st, I'll be making a new sticky post at the top of this blog. It will track my word count for NaNoWriMo. I will be updating it each day, be it that I write ten thousand words in one sitting or zero for a whole day. Any words of encouragement, threats, or random NaNoWriMo-related queries can be put there.


Tomorrow is November 1st. The end of Facing Fearful Odds: Book 1 is at hand...

Facing Fearful Odds -- Book 1: Earth (10 chapters planned)
     Chapter 1 is 100% and UNDERGOING OMEGA EDIT. (11,131 words)
     Chapter 2 is 100% and UNDERGOING OMEGA EDIT (15,375 words)
     Chapter 3 is 100% and in GOLD BETA. (7,392 words)
Total Project Status as of 9/1/2009: Book 1 is 50% done, with five chapters remaining. (72,030 words)
Total Project Status as of 10/1/2009: Book 1 is 56% done, with a little over four chapters remaining. (106,859 words) (+ 34,829)


COMMENTS: September was the most productive month yet for Facing Fearful Odds. I finally finished Chapter 5, and now I'm on the road to complete Chapter 6 within the week. By the end of October I should hopefully have Chapters 7 and 8 done as well *crosses fingers*. I also split 6-A into two parts because a 20,000+ word update is a lot to ask people to read.

As I'm nearing the end of Book 1, I'm beginning to get a sense of the hidden themes in the story I've written ("Loss of identity") verses the themes I started off intending to write ("Optimism as a moral choice"). After finishing Book 1's rough draft, I'm going to have to go back to the beginning and develop that hidden theme so it's more concrete in the finished product.

So the way to Book 1's finale looks clear and I'm trucking along. The end is in sight! Rejoice!

So Chapter 5-B of Facing Fearful Odds has petered out this past week. The problem is how to tell the story I want without it being boring. Also, 5-B is burdened with a HUGE exposition dump... it's necessary to the overall story, but I can't force that on my readers without figuring out an entertaining emotional angle. So I've walked away from 5-B for the time being until I can come back to it with fresh eyes.

In the meantime, with the aid of my wonderful betas, I've been doing an overall line-by-line edit of Chapters 1 through 4. And good Lord, there's nothing like revising your own stuff -- even from only a month ago -- to realize how bad you are as a writer. The three most common problems I've encountered are dropped articles (the / a / this), overuse of commas, and unclear sentences. It's good to iron all these flaws out but now I'm too scared to read over, say, the early chapters of Taking Sights.

  ( Original Scene )

( Revised Scene )

And there will undoubtedly be more revisions and edits after this round of them. But it's been insightful to observe how the story I originally wrote is slowly being shaped into something cleaner and stronger. Good betas really should be measured by their weight in gold, and mine are worth every ounce.

Work on Facing Fearful Odds continues with all due speed. Chapter 5-A has been completed, and I'm whittling down the super-rough incomplete draft of Chapter 5-B before I start building it back up. I figure it'll take about two more months before I can start posting FFO in public. When I do so, it'll go up on my new Dreamwidth account -- this LiveJournal has become my public work diary.

Once I finish with Book 1 of Facing Fearful Odds, it'll be time to sit down and finish Book 1 of Taking Sights. The speedy process of writing FFO has given me new insight into the problems I've had with the recent chapters of Taking Sights. As I'm sure you've noticed, the update rate for Takings Sights has slowed dramatically this year. Partly, this is due to the fact I can't write a chapter under 15000 words to save my life. It is also due in large part, however, because of the story problems I've discovered.

At it's core, Taking Sights is supposed to be the journey of Gendo Ikari and how he deals with trying to make amends with his life. These tasks range from saving the world from his own plots to convincing Rei of the value of her own life. The MOST important task is repairing his relationship with Shinji. The problem for me, the writer, is that that plot line resolved itself fairly early on. Gendo tried to manipulate Shinji, Shinji sniffed out his father's true intents, and any chance for future reconciliation went down the gutter. End of story.

The thing is, Shinji doesn't have a whole lot to do with the story now. That's why he's pretty much vanished into the background and why Asuka's taken Shinji's place as the lead pilot character. Because the reader feels a sense of danger for Asuka -- she's the one main cast member (in a general Evangelion sense) that Gendo's absolutely willing to sacrifice. He's counting on her dying, the only question is how to make the most use of her. And out of the main cast members, Asuka is the only one not directly connected to Gendo Ikari's bullshit. Shinji, Rei, Misato, Ritsuko, Fuyutsuki, Keel... their lives have all revolved around Gendo at some point. But not Asuka. She's the foreign element, and a symbol of how Gendo is still a selfish bastard willing to do horrible, immoral things to anyone he doesn't value.

Shinji and Rei are the offspring of his past life, but Asuka's ultimate fate will be the child post-time travel Gendo fathers. It's also why Asuka has become the second main character of Taking Sights. Unless Gendo can find some place in his heart for someone who has no value to him, there's no hope for the rest of the human race. Gendo Ikari is still the same man, just with different priorities, until he proves otherwise.

So how does this tie in with Facing Fearful Odds? Because while these problems will continue as we muddle through to the end of Book 1 of Taking Sights, I've been thinking long and hard about how Book 2 is going to play out. And now I have a plan to make Book 2 more character-driven and cohesive than Book 1 has been.

While Gendo will remain the main(est) character in Book 2, he'll be joined by a new co-main character -- and it isn't Asuka. The Second Child's current arc will climax with the explosive finale of Book 1, and Book 2 will carry all the cast members in a radically new direction. It'll be intense, I promise you.

Now I just need to write it.