Simon’s POV is done, at 138,000 words (including one POV chapter from Augusta to open the story, and one POV chapter from Hal to close it). Ending’s still not quite right (though over the weekend, I did figure out a couple of ways to fix it), but it’s never going to be exactly right until I get Lily’s side of the story in there. I’ll be starting off on her again this week once I’ve implemented the couple of last changes for Simon’s POV.
I’m not sure how many writers would agree with me here, but I find with every long story there’s one thing that comes up which is both surprising and something to be grateful for. And in this story, I’m grateful for Hal, Simon’s sergeant. He came into existence with one single, logical, thought: Simon’s an awful, awful officer. He’s going to need a very competent second.
Hal changed the face of the story from being a semi-romance between Simon and Augusta, to also being about two men who are basically married to each other but get their sex outside the relationship. Which, actually, makes the whole thing that much more interesting.
So, I have this one last week before I go away for a week’s holiday. I don’t want to get too far into writing then have my momentum broken so soon, so I am going to use the time to work how many scenes I need with Lily, what she will need to know and have done by the time she intersects Simon again, and how her story will end. Gosh, I think I’m plotting, I never normally do that. It will be interesting to see how different this experience will be to writing on the fly (personally, I think it will make it less interesting, but we’ll see).
