To the Sixes

 After consulting with my wonderful beta, I'm junking Chapter 9-C of FFO and starting over.

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

Chapter 6 is 100% and in GOLD BETA (35,976 words)
Chapter 7 is 100% and in GOLD BETA (29,804 words)
Chapter 8 is ~15% done. (1,544 words)
Chapter 9 is 50% done.
      * 9-A is 100% done and is GOLD BETA (11,481 words)
      * 9-B is 100% done and is GOLD BETA (8,379 words)
      * 9-C is 10% done (2,882 words)
      * 9-D is 5% done (481 words)
Chapter 10 is 50% done. (1,147 words)
      * 10-A is 100% done AWAITING BETA (10,281 words)
      * 10-B is 10% done. (3,551 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)
Total Project Status as of 2/1/2010: Book 1 is 75% done, with three chapters remaining. (146,215 words) (+10,823 words)
Total Project Status as of 3/1/2010: Book 1 is 80% done, with two and half chapters remaining. (162,293 words) (+16,078 words)
Total Project Status as of 4/1/2010: Book 1 is 90% done, with two and half chapters remaining. (184,419 words) (+22,126 words)

Comments: Well, I didn't finish the rough draft of Book 1 yet. I did make some solid progress which I'm happy about. I also did a load of writing for other projects, amounting to a total production count of 40~45,000 words for the month of March. The first two chapters of FFO have finally been locked down in their Omega Editions. As I've been re-reading the early chapters as part of my Omega Edit of Book 1, I discovered two important lingering plot threads that I need to weave back into the last three chapters. I also need to pick a damn hair color for Suki and stick with it (brown? red? auburn?).

Regardless, I'm going to start publicly posting FFO towards the end of the month of April. I want to get a little more work in, but I think that overall the story is in solid shape. Updates will be on a weekly basis; still haven't picked what day of the week I'll be regularly posting chapters -- if you want a say in this, there's a poll at the top of my profile here.

Only a piddling 245 words today. I spent what little time I had today working on revision. Nothing much to report. Planning to overhaul a large speech in 5-C tomorrow. Also, while revising the scene break formatting in the middle chapters, I discovered a dangling plot thread that I had forgotten about during the course of writing Chapter 6.

Got some work done on 10-A (+512) and 9-C (+1,712 words).

Current Status:

Chapter 8 status: 0 of 5 drabbles completed. (1,154 words)

Chapter 9-C status: 1 of 13 scenes completed. (1,712 words)
Chapter 9-D status: 0 of ? scenes completed. (469 words)

Chapter 10-A status: 11 of 18 scenes completed. (6,998 words)
Chapter 10-B status: 1 of 33 scenes completed. (3,327 words)

Today I finished the first three scenes (2,170 words) of Chapter 10-A of FFO, fifteen more scenes remain per my outline.

The total word count for Chapter 10 stands at 5,617.

Currently 17,000ish words into the second draft of "Praise Be", which is more than I managed in all of NaNoWriMo. I finally figured out this morning how the story will end. Usually I start my projects with an ending in mind, but this one was a long time in coming.

I've spent the last day and a half heavily reworking Chapter 4 of "Facing Fearful Odds." I hit a growth spurt as a writer while Chapter 5 was in production and it's very clear that Chapter 4 is a gawky teenager. It's easily the worst chapter in all of Book 1.

Around the time I started writing Chapter 3, one of my two core betas recommended that I split up my earlier chapters into smaller sections for ease of reading. Chapter 1 is a little over 10k and he felt that was too long for casual readers. I didn't think so at first, but when I publish Siege of the South a few reviewers surprised me by mentioning that it was too long for a one-shot. I chalk it up to different fandoms, different standards. But returning to my point, I split up Chapters 1 and 2 after I had written them. Chapter 4 was the first chapter I wrote with the intention of splitting it up. I did a terrible job of this. There's no proper pacing. Unlike later sub-chapters, there's no self-contained mini-story in Chapters 4-A and 4-B.

Random observation on revising the whole of Book 1? I seem to frequently identify my characters by their hair and eye color in Chapters 1-4 of FFO, then stop doing that entirely starting in Chapter 5 onwards. It's a very lazy writing technique. I'm refraining from removing too many of these weakass hair/eye references, though, because I don't want to get stuck revising this story forever. My goal for March is to finish the first draft of FFO and by God I intend to do just that.

* Chapter 9-B of FFO is off to my beta. It's fairly short, though, so this isn't much of an accomplishment. It's only 4,000 words long and I usually hit about 8,000+ for FFO sub-chapters. Chapter 9 has two parts left to it, -C and -D. I think 'C' will mostly be a three-way training montage, while 'D' will be a romantic action-comedy that will set the stage for the finale in Chapter 10.

* Been filling out my outline for FFO Books 2 and 3. I've got bits of the Book 2 finale sorted out, including deciding that one major character will now die. It's gonna be a whopper of a death scene too. I've also been considering an extensive revision of half the "Sozin's Comet" finale (which I'm either calling "The Motion Picture" or "Weapons of Choice" depending on what day of the week it is) because of pacing/theme concerns.

* I've started rewriting "Praise Be to Nero's Neptune" and have a solid four thousand words done on it so far, plus the fragments from the defunct NaNoWriMo version. I've decided to junk the chapter divisions and just make the story a continuous narrative. I have no ending in mind for the "Praise Be" yet, which I find disconcerting. Beginnings and endings are always the first things I come up with -- Siege of the South started out with its ending and then I went back to the beginning and wrote up to there, Taking Sights I've changed a few times but knew its general shape, and Facing Fearful Odds I've known how all three books and the finale will begin/end since I started the whole project.

* I've started a new short story project. I just had a plot bunny pop into my head at dinner one night and then spent the next five hours straight writing out the first chapter. It's a weird one. The story will probably only be 5 or 6 parts. It stars Aang and is tentatively called Between Tick and Tock. After spending so much time on FFO, it feels strange to write Aang.

Huzzah.

Over 3800 words written for FFO Chapter 9-A yesterday, bringing the total to just shy of 7,000, and I spent all of today revising it. (I'm skipping Ch.8 for the moment due to inspiration.) It's been very fun to write 9-A so far, which isn't surprising. There's always a heady feeling when starting a new chapter (or new project) that gradually fades away and turns finishing the chapter (or project) into a slogging chore. It's a relief that I can rely on a strong character arc for the last two chapters. Everyone in the cast has something to do.

On another note, I'm officially signed up for the AtLA Big Bang. I kicked around the idea of doing a bigass fic, either an Iroh-centric one or an expansion of my drabble "The Natural Daughter of Somebody", but in the end I decided I have too many long-form projects in the works at the moment to start another one. Especially since I'm nearing the end of FFO: Book 1, getting BoKI off the ground, and doing pre-writing for my new Evangelion AU project. So I'll be doing a fairly short genderswap fic; essentially a rewrite of The Warriors of Kyoshi with maybe some stuff from other episodes. It'll be based on the idea I had for that girl!Sokka fic I abandoned but with a a different, non-plagaristic voice and linear chronology.

I'm 75% certain it won't be a yuri fic, if only because it's rare in fanfic to see a strong, emotional comradeship between two characters of the same gender and not have some sort of sexual relationship shoehorned into it.