I’m at 8000 words. Which sounds good, since it’s more than my target 500 words a day. However, I was not able to write every day (including today), and much of the total word count came from the original 20 pages rather than new words – though I am adding to and improving those original initial scenes.
Even on days I did have plenty of time, I could feel myself procrastinating. I know exactly why I do this – I’m worried that once I get past the first few scenes, where I have the original pages and am fairly happy with the way they go, I’ll be out there in the wide open space of the blank white page, staring down 70,000 words and panicking about it…
I know from past experience that the only way to combat this feeling is to just keep plonking away at the keyboard muttering, ‘it’s just the first draft, it can be crappy. Don’t think about 70,000. Think about 500′.
Towards the end of the week, I did feel things begin to pick up. In particular, I’m writing from the POV of Jannin, who was my bad guy in the first book. Not a lot gets told about him or his past in the first book, and now his backstory is beginning to whisper to me. I’m also getting hints about what his arc will be – until now, I’ve been focused on Rana’s arc (she was my POV in the first book and will be again in this one). She has losses to recover from – but so does Jannin, and that’s what’s showing up strongly in these re-written first scenes.
