To the Sixes

1. Chapter 6-A of Facing Fearful Odds is gonna have to be a god-damned 20,000 word novella to properly tell the story it wants to.

2. In order to finish Taking Sights I am going to have to go back and extensively revise the whole goddamn 166,457 words already written.

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.

 The next chapter of Taking Sights is off to the pre-readers. In the meantime, I'm going to try something new here. I'm going to be posting public updates of my daily writing rate, broken down into half hour increments. I'll be updating this sporadically throughout the day (and maybe tomorrow. We'll see.) 

Facing Fearful Odds -- Chapter 4 writing totals (IN PROGRESS)

JULY 5, 2009

8:49 pm -- 420 words (start)

9:19 pm -- 875 words (455)

9:51 pm -- 1,327 words (452)

10:22 pm -- 1,702 words (375)

JULY 6, 2009

9:51 am -- 1,738 words (start)

10:21 am -- 2,176 words (438)

10:56 am -- 2,593 words (417)

1:27 pm -- 3,006 words     (413)

3:15 pm -- 3,710 words     (704)

3:56 pm -- 4,325 words (615)

9:21 pm -- 4,919 words (594)

9:55 pm -- 5,346 words (427)

11:50 pm -- 6,060 words (714)