Tag: forward motion

Slowly getting there

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

I’m definitely not hitting any huge numbers or even finishing scenes as of yet, but I’ll hit those goals once again, soon enough. I’m not going to push it. Right now, my only writing goal is to get something written. The other day it was a little over six hundred. Tonight it’s probably more like two hundred.

Again, this is how I remember writing A Division of Souls: at the beginning of the project, it was about forward motion, even if it was a little at a time. This allowed me to take my time absorbing the scene and the characters within it, really get to know them a bit. These are mostly all new characters I’m introducing right now, the main cast that will take over where the original gang left off, and I’m learning about them as I go. This has already paid dividends as I’m getting to know one of the new mains more intimately, flaws and all. Which lets me figure out what’s going to happen next.

So yeah, that’s all I have to report here right now. Here, have a new groove from Unknown Mortal Orchestra that’s been playing on my PC lately!

Movement

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

I suppose I can make it official now that I’ve started prep work for MU4 as of Wednesday morning! And what kind of prep work is this? It’s the same prep work I depended on for the previous three MU books: mapping out a few scenes ahead on scrap pieces of paper during the occasional slow moments at the Day Job. It’s nothing major, but it gives me just enough of a stable platform to work from. It’s a process that worked perfectly for me during the trilogy, so I think it’s worth trying again now.

It feels great to be moving again creatively. This is where I’m the happiest when writing: the mental gears turning, the excitement of working through the numerous moving parts and making sure they’re all in the right place, the thrill of weaving several plotlines around the central arc. And tertiarily, this is where I find myself focusing more on the music that plays during the entire process: the writing soundtracks themselves that lend or inspire the emotions of the prose.

Movement was part of the thrill of writing the Bridgetown Trilogy, actually; I’d made a conscious decision that nearly every single scene in the three books were always in motion somehow. Even during the slow moments where no one was physically going anywhere (the scene in A Division of Souls where Denni needs to get to the warehouse and she and the others are stuck in traffic comes to mind), their minds were going at full tilt.

I’m looking forward to implementing that same process for this new project as well. Even when I’m taking small steps like these. It’s forward progression, and that’s what counts.