The Plan Developes

To continue on with my previous post, this is an update of what's going on with my newest writing project. Right now it is still very much in the spitballing stage. The premise is pretty well set, it's an idea that I've had at the back of my mind for years. I didn't think that I could pull if off back then and I'm not sure about it now but I figure it's time to give it a real shot. It's been developing itself in a way. It seems to have a sort of gravity with which it sucks in other ideas and attaches them to various parts of itself and now, four or five years later, I don't really recognize it anymore but it is much more interesting. It does, however, need vast amounts of work.

For instance, on of the problems with the whole gravity idea is that not only does it suck in original ideas but those borrowed from bits and pieces of other novels that I've read in the same time frame. I'm going to have to perform a sort of surgury to pull those bits out or at least change them enough so that they are my own. There's also the matter of the cast and crew. There are two or three main characters that I've got figured out pretty well but there are at least ten or fifteen holes that I've got to fill with fresh creations. There are probably more, but that's as far as I've gotten on the characters. I've got some good ideas developing themselves though. Ah, but that's not the end of the prewriting work I've got ahead of me.

The third big problem is the map. It has also been working itself out for a few years and I've got a good idea of what I want but there are a great many things that I have not researched yet. The anthropologies, meteorologies, histories, and geologies, to name a few, are still in the early planning stages. This will obviously be a rather large task.

Then there's the really hard questions. Even after I have all that other stuff figured out, I still have quite a few difficult problems to work out. Where does it start? Where does it end? How am I going to get from the start to the end? Will it be three books or five? I don't think one will take care of the whole thing. It's a little stressful, but still fun. The only real solution is to start writing and not stop till it's finished. Some of these things may even work themselves out in the process. The concensus among this crowd seems to be that there is really no excuse to not write at least a little every day. Whether it's on subject or off, good or bad, fun or not, the only way to do it is to keep going. I tend to agree with this. After all, there is always something to write about.