Chapter 5 is a mess. But I need to leave it for a while to figure out what I want for it. Bookmark Chapter 5, move on to Chapter 6.

Funny Dr. Seuss-style poem about literary agents here.

Really need to get moving on Chapter 5. The goal is to have a draft finished by the end of the month so I can move onto Chapter 6. I haven't really been writing much the last several days. Gah.

No huge changes to Chapter 4, though that may change in the next round of revisions. Chapter 5 is like wandering around in a dark basement. You know the flashlight is there, somewhere.

Finished revising Chapter 3, though it needs much more polishing than Chapters 1 and 2. But for purposes of this draft, it's done. Moving on to Chapter 4 revisions/drafting. If you recall, I left Chapter 4 half drafted, a complete mess of 9 pages. Chapter 4, here I go.

Day 34 Progress Report

Days 34 (August 31) - Meh. Suffice it to say, I did not make the August deadline for my draft. Far from it. But I did get a lot done. Significantly, I hacked out a full story outline, so writing from now on should, theoretically, require less HUGE revisions later on, seeing that I actually know, somewhat, where my story is going. I sketchedseveral chapters ahead earlier in the month, though I'll have to go back now and see how much they deviate from my outline. Chapter 1 was revised, cutting out about 2-3 pages of angst and melodrama, leaving it at 6 pages. Chapter 2 was sigificantly revised--perhaps 10 pages of new material altogether--and now comes in at 21 pages. I'm still in the middle of revising Chapter 3, and I'm about halfway through that process. Chapters 1 and 2 still need to be polished, but I'm satisfied enough for now to move on.

Page/word count:

Chapter 1 -- 6 pages -- 3,638 words

Chapter 2 -- 21 pages -- 12, 257 words

Total: 27 pages -- 15,895 words

Chapter 1 has something of a prologue taste to it, but I don't want to call it a prologue until later, if I have to. The overuse of prologues annoys me. Excluding Chapter 1, I feel that most of my chapters will weigh in at around 20 pages.

In addition to the visible progress, I also developed more self-discipline in terms of writing, or making an effort, almost every day. And I've finally grown attached to this story. I'll continue to make writing a priority, and I want to continue blogging about it, although without the annoying day counter. :P

Days 30-33 Progress Report

Days 30-31 (August 27-28) - I work really well for a few hours if I wake up at 5 am, I've found. I don't remember what I did on these days, but I do know I got at least a little writing done. Oh wait, I do remember. I came down to Chiayi on Day 30, and I used the entire three-hour bus ride to run through my plot outline and do "image training" for the story. It was very productive. I got a lot of notes made and revised the plot further on. Three hours seems like a long time to do nothing but think, but I was able to keep focused with the plot outline printout in hand and make progress. With the new backstory and plot structure in mind, I looked over Chapter 1 again and started revising Chapter 2 on Day 31.

Day 32 (August 29) - Continued Chapter 2 revisions. Didn't quite make it to the end, but I reworked the Asagawa scene and streamlined it so that it wasn't the mismash of lines I'd left it as after the previous half-baked revision earlier this month. Worked through the chapter until about page 16 or 17 and went to sleep.

Day 33 (August 30) - Woke up at 5 am like yesterday and worked straight until 10 am. It feels so good. Yesterday morning I had to stop after only three hours because I was getting a headache, but this morning I was good. I continued with expanding the previously minimal travel scene, added a surprise family scene to help set up Ayaka for later (surprise because I wasn't planning to write anything of the sort), and then completely rewrote the part near the end that screamed PlotDevice! where the guide leaves to get himself killed. Most of the last few pages, from when they start traveling until the second-to-last second, is completely new or rewritten. And then I added a nasty little surprise for Hinako in the last scene. It's so much fun torturing my characters. I don't enjoy torturing characters in fanfics because I feel badly for them, but when they're my own characters...well, it's fun. And I don't feel bad at all. *grin*

Days 28-29 Progress Report

Day 28 (August 25) - Not much progress to speak of. Although I got some new intel regarding names for men and women in the Edo period. Need to do some thinking because some character names need to be changed.

Day 29 (August 26) - Finally got back to writing. Finished my rough drafting of Chapter 10 this afternoon. Chapter 10 being the current chapter designated as the flashback chapter. But even though I've done a rough draft/sketch of it, it's still very rough. In the end, I'm still a little confused on Kyoshi's motivations. In the end, did she do it out of jealousy or out of misguided love? Or both? It currently reads as both, but I think it's too much of a mishmash of things I want/wanted to include in the real draft at the moment for me to determine if it'll work or not. (Also, I'm tired of designating characters by letter, so I'm going by name now. Some of which have changed as of yesterday/today.)

Update: Rethought problems of character motivation in Chapter 10 and found a solution by creating a new character. I feel utterly brilliant. When evaluating names for the new character, Miyo vs. Okayo, both of which I like, I chose Miyo. I can just imagine the Japanese-illiterate reader coming across "Okayo" and seeing it as "Okay-o." =_=

This really helped clarify Yayoi's motivations, and having those in line, I was able to go back and install some order into the sequence of events and Kyoshi's motivations. Added another page of rough drafting to chapter ten, for a total of eleven very rough pages.