New beginnings

Hmm. I've blogged about this elsewhere, but not here. And since this is MY blog, I really ought to share what I did this past week in the writing.

I got the new book started. I pulled out the file folder with my ideas and the few pages I'd already written and got busy last Monday. I did Tarot readings for each of my characters--they work as well as character charts (better in some ways), and give me a chance to practice reading. I did a "year" reading for them and a "life lessons" reading. Then I worked on plot points.

I don't want a detailed plot when I begin or one of those "First Draft in 30 Days" first drafts. That doesn't work for me. I'm not a multiple draft writer. I generally get my final draft in three go-throughs. First draft is in longhand, second draft is when I type it into the computer, then I go through it one last time and I'm done, and there's generally not that much change between 1st draft and the 3rd. But I'm not a seat-of-the-pants writer either. Stephen King can sit down at his computer and follow the story where it goes. I can't. I'd get lost before I found the end of it.

I fall somewhere in between. I do plot points so I know where my story is going, but there's enough room that I don't feel I've already written it and don't need to do it again.

These are Syd Fields' turning points or Christopher Vogler's Hero's Journey--basically the same thing. And then I take those plot points and write a synopsis--hopefully of a reasonable length. So I wrote an 11-page synopsis. At 1 page per 10,000 words, that should give me a decent length book for Luna.

Then I pulled out the 6 pages I'd already written. Things have changed since I wrote them. I moved the setting, expanded on the magic--little things, but enough that trying to squeeze the changes between my handwritten lines was getting problematic. I can't read that small any more. So I rewrote the pages. Just 6 pages. Doesn't count as a new draft. That got me back into the New Blood universe well enough that I was able to push on, finish the 1st chapter and start the second. I am happy. The book is begun, and I ought to be able to get more done next week, and then more, and more.

Now I just have to print out The Eternal Rose again and send it to my agent before I send her the new proposal.