The last couple of days have seen me produce a couple of new pages of material, but not enough to meet my quotas. I'm behind for the week, but I'm going to make a couple of pushes over the weekend that I hope will bring me back up to speed.
What I have done, which has been interesting to me, is to take stock of the work I already have compiled. I've printed off the first 50 pages of my manuscript and I'm reading through them for continuity. I'm using Nanowrimo to fill in the gaps of my first act, and to give me a sense that I'm moving closer to a more cohesive whole of a first draft. So far, it's been working.
Two things happened as a result of the work I've done this week. First, the review of the early pages is giving me a solid sense of my opening and where my characters "live" when the novel opens. The other is that this increased sense of structure and continuity has influenced my writing of new material.
The three complete handwritten pages I wrote today is a thread that needs to be woven into the story. I wrote a couple of small scenes, little pieces of the storyline today and I had a solid sense of where each of the pieces would fit into the larger work that is already typed and part of the manuscript. This is the first time this specific brand of intentionality has crept into my work, which is exciting. I'd like to see that happen a little bit more as I work to complete my first act.
I hand-wrote everything over the past couple of days and haven't transcribed it to my Scrivener software, so I don't have word count updates. I do have some fun sentences, I think. This is a passage with the main character's best friend Willy. I love writing his character. Oliver has just told Willy that he can't hang out on Friday, but he won't say way. He has a date with his ex-girlfriend.
Favorite sentence/sentences:
Willy stood over him as he worked, waiting for an answer. Once it became obvious Oliver didn't intend to respond, he said, "Wow. She must be one ugly bitch."
"Shut up," Oliver said and shook his head to show he wasn't going to take the bait.
"I mean if you won't tell me, you're best friend in the entire world, then she must be hideous." Willy let the words hang between them. "Unless," he said and raised his finger as if experiencing a great epiphany, "she's fat. That's it." Willy waggled his finger and his face broke into a leering sneer. "She's enormous, isn't she? How much? Two bills? Three?" Willy drew his fact into a mask of disbelief. "Four?! You gonna have tons of fun this weekend, Ollie?"
The scene goes on in much this same vein until Oliver blows up and gets in trouble for cussing within earshot of a customer.
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