Some days are for writing, others are not.

Unlike the last three days, today was. After something of a dry spell on motivation, I finally managed to get some real writing done today. I'm pleased with the result--1,500 words, and all of it interesting enough to keep. I had been putting off writing because of some uncertainty with how to execute chapter 6, but those ideas have been marinating over the last few days, and I was finally able to act on them today. In the writing, I actually managed to integrate a new twist into the mystery of the book that I hadn't ever thought of before. I think that this new twist, plus the more active way in which I chose to write this chapter (versus what I had planned) makes for a much more interesting and tense set of scenes.

Every book needs downtime amidst all the fast pacing, or at least that's the common wisdom. I had intended this chapter to be that downtime, but the way I was planning to handle that just didn't feel right. The way I actually implemented it, the tension is still very much there, just lower-key. The things that had been causing most of the old tension have temporarily faded to the background a little bit, and a whole new set of tension sources are introduced. I actually like that a lot--it gives the reader a breather from some things, while still keeping them going with others.

In my first drafts of THE GUARDIAN, chapter six was where things got the slowest out of the whole book. On Beverly's advice, I wound up cutting most of the slowness and ruminative exposition in that chapter in favor of alternate minor sources of tension, much like what I'm now doing here. It's funny, because I didn't specifically think of taking her advice when writing this chapter, but I wound up doing it anyway. It's really reassuring to think that I'm internalizing her lessons that well.

14,768 / 95,000 (15.5%)