Book Three Status Update #2, Christmas Eve Edition

So, seen any good movies lately?

Ur on the naughty list

Anyway, I thought it'd be a good time for a quick-'n'-dirty status update on Book Three, which I think I'll start doing on a monthly basis. Or not, if I change my mind.

If you recall, last month I wrote the first real status update on the next Spectraland Saga installment, and at that point I said that I had an outline and 4,000 words. Which was true. I wasn't lying.

And now, I have...22,000 words?? Um, how the heck did that happen? After all, it's only been six weeks since the last update.

Well, the answer is that I've been applying some of the lessons I learned from my whole Book Two ordeal experience, some of which I thought I had been applying before, but as it turns out...maybe not so much.

Lesson #1: Write from an outline. At one point, I tried winging it with Book Two, but as I told Felicity back on January 28, 2013, that didn't turn out so well.

Lesson #2: Turn off the internal editor. I knew this before, but the point was really driven home after I ended up doing multiple rewrites of multiple sections of Book Two. Now, I'm charging straight ahead and not stopping or looking back at all, even when I'm aware that something I'm currently writing is complete garbage or that I'm directly contradicting something in an earlier chapter.

The goal is to follow the outline, get the story down on paper, and then fix it up later. Because for one, I usually find that what I thought was garbage really wasn't that bad, and two, I'm probably going to end up rewriting it anyway.

It's actually kind of fun and exciting. Really, it is! Why, you ask? Well, since I'm not pausing to endlessly re-read previous chapters or paragraphs, once I'm finished with this initial draft I'll be able to go back and read the whole thing straight through, and it'll all seem fresh and new...almost as if someone else had written it. Can't wait!

And finally, Lesson #3: Write every day. A minimum of 500 new words. If I can do more, then great. This is a lesson I had been applying from the time of Book One, but it did get lost every once in a while during the Book Two process when I wasn't following Lesson #2 and I ended up just replacing 500 words instead of composing additional ones.

Wow, that wasn't really quick-'n'-dirty at all, was it? Anyway, Merry Christmas everyone, I'm off to see The Force Awakens again!