Well, week one of my three-week paternity leave is just about done. I’ve been enjoying my time with the little guy, as always. Except today, he spit up all of the formula he had eaten just minutes before, nailing my shirt, his shirt, my pants, and his pants. Then, when I went to change him, he peed all over himself.

Dad. Life.

I still haven’t gotten my writing back on track. Turns out it’s hard to find and stick to a routine when it changes every two weeks. That will end once Nugget is in day-care in two+ weeks.

I am also using my wife’s laptop, which is not really an excuse. I’m just waiting for my shiny new home desktop system to arrive. I think having a less-portable set-up will force me to spend more dedicated time in my office being productive, rather than lazily checking emails from my living room couch.

I did manage to get past that pesky section that had slowed to a halt. I basically cut out the fluff and got to a scene with new narrative movement.

I’m still finding it difficult to balance the world-building aspect with narrative flow. I want readers of Legacy to find a similar level of depth in Everfeld and among Feldings as they would with Memento, but I don’t want to be redundant.

That means I’ve been leaving out some of the more descriptive details from scenes, just trying to get to the point. That could be useful in some cases where I don’t want to lose the reader’s interest, but I might end up adding more description to certain areas later.

The narrative split between my character groups has been hard to balance as well. With Memento, all of my characters were pretty much moving towards the same end, so each one had a clear goal and means for getting there.

With Legacy, I essentially have two distinct storylines:

Storyline A follows characters who revolve around the talisman. Yes, the same talisman from Memento, for any of those readers–characters possessing or connected to the talisman directly. I have two primary POV characters, and three or so secondary POV characters for Storyline A.

Storyline B follows characters not connected or concerned with the talisman in any meaningful fashion. Here, too, I have two primary POV characters, and perhaps two or three secondary.

So Legacy is sort of like two stories running in parallel to each other, with cross-threads connecting them at various points, of course. I’m thinking more and more that I should write Storyline A (which is clearer and more distinct in my head), with the connective threads to Storyline B in mind.

Then, I can come back to Storyline B to tie off those connective threads and organize them into one novel. That way, I can intersperse the sections from each to form one novel.

Why do it this way instead of just writing two separate stories, you ask?

Because the two storylines occur over roughly the same time period, and events in one may impact events in the other, even if indirectly.

Non-Writing Things

As I said earlier, I’m hoping my new desktop PC will help me get back into a proper writing routine.

I’m also trying to focus my efforts on reading the beta copy of The Sleeping and the Dead, by Paul B. Spence. I got a copy through his “clone-sibling”, Thomas, over at NorthofAndover.wordpress.com.

My goal is to finish reading the manuscript by the end of the month and promptly respond to and send back the reader questions they gave me. I am not on pace to finish said manuscript, so I have some catching up to do. The good news is that it’s a well-written and interesting story so far, so it won’t be hard for me to read it. Doing so on my phone (because it’s a PDF) is less than ideal.

I swear I haven’t forgotten about The Grand Mythos of Úr’Dan. I am tentatively planning to publish chapter one on Wattpad next week, but the official announcement will come when it’s up, as well as my amazing cover reveal.

Goals for 1/25

1. Get this post up earlier next Friday
2. Write 1,000 words
3. Read 150+ pages of The Sleeping and the Dead  beta copy

Steve D