Charting the Personal Timeline

Today is a busy day.  Not it’s going to be a busy day, but it’s busy.  I heard there is snow and ice on my route home, so tonight could be a little trick as I return to the wilds of northwest Indiana.  No big deal.  I’ll get home.

I’ll also be on the web speaking to my therapist, because I miss her and we have things to say to each other.  It’s been three months since I was on the couch, and our time together was some good stuff, and I’m looking to get back into a routine because, why not?  We all need a little routine in our lives.

Writing is a routine.  I didn’t get much done on Saturday, but Sunday I finished Chapter Five, got two of my main characters, Keith and Elektra (yeah, that’s really her name) together, and saw my muse vanish for the time being.  I ended up writing about twelve hundred and fifty words, and I have officially passed into the Country of Novella, where all the officials are corrupt, and are just looking for the right moment to throw your ass under the jail—usually after you don’t make your word count.

So all my players are upon the stage, with only a couple of bit players remaining to show up now and then to move the story along.  I’m happy with the progression, even if I’m seeing a fifty day time line for writing the first draft, with fourteen days behind me.  It’s better than saying it’s going to take sixty days to write it, which may have been more real at the beginning when I had no idea how big the story would become—and with my counts down and analyzed, right now I’m on the cusp of a sixty-three thousand word story that could, realistically, end up being sixty-five to seventy thousand words.

I almost always set goals for myself when I’m writing.  A thousand words a day; sixty-five thousand words for a novel; four stories published in 2013.  I do the same thing in stories; there are always things that are going to happen, and they will happen when they happen, so I never worry if something doesn’t happen, because it happens in its own good time.

When I was laying out my timelines on Saturday, the notion hit me that I probably have more to write than I can ever write.  If I write a novel every ninety days, and spend another ninety days editing it while working on another novel or novella, then I could publish two to three novels a year—assuming I did it all the self-publishing route.  I know that, for one series, I could likely do twenty stories, and when you do the math, that’s almost seven years of steady work to get those all published.  Which means I’d be in my early sixties before that work is finished—

If I start now.

Oh, this is what is known as job security, right?  The fact that I have a ton of work, and maybe twenty years to get it done.

Living on the Time Line

Many, many things happened on 12 October, 2012—most of which I have no intention of discussing. Let us just say it is another of those life changing moments, the ones that test your fortitude, and force you to see if things are going in the correct direction.

In time I may speak of these things. Highly unlikely, however, because there is little to discuss. Time be time, mon, and once the past has zipped by, there’s nothing you can do to get it back.

And why would you want that, anyway? You can’t meddle in the basic fabric of the universe, can you? Onward, suckers.

I’ve given much thought to NaNo Novel, the 2012 Version. I’ve been doing that since Wednesday, actually, ever since I started blogging about getting the book in shape. I have but two chapters to do for my Halloween story—one which is about half written—and then nothing for November . . . save for The Crazy Train. Save for writing our butts off and hoping, against all hope, that what we produce doesn’t end up sounding like something one would scribble, in crayon, upon the walls of a padded cell. Unless, of course, that’s what you’re trying to write; then you’re doing it right.

I have location, people, creatures that go bump in the night. Now I’m getting the plot together. In thinking about what’s happening in the story, I realized that I would need to know when these events would occur. Normally, I scribble down a few notes in Scrivener, and use those as a guide to figure out what I’m going to write.

At the same time, I have this set up, the events leading to the moment when the main character step upon the stage, and the things that will lead then forward. So, yesterday, I began creating a timeline for my novel. I’m using software called Timeline, which is quick, simple, and easy. Doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles, but for what I need to do, it gets the job done.

This is the first time I’ve gotten into this level of detail with a story. To give you an idea, below is a screen shot of my timeline as of now:

 

 

 

It might not make sense to you at the moment, but I understand everything that’s happening. You might even notice that I have an event labeled, “Ramadan, 2013”. The story takes place in a country where Islam is the primary faith, and since I’m placing my story in the year 2013, I needed to know when Ramadan would be observed—even though it won’t play any importance in the story beyond a mention to one of the characters. A friend who is familiar with the characters said to me yesterday, “I knew you’d have to know when Ramadan happens in 2013.” Yes, that’s me: Mr. I Need To Know Things That Aren’t Even Used In Your Story.

There actually is a reason I needed to find those dates: if the story took place during the time frame of Ramadan, I’d need to have one of the characters fasting, and certain things would need to be done throughout the day. That would be a major screw up that no writer should have to live down.

Unless you’re the sort of writers who doesn’t give a shit, then it’s okay. I’m not that sort of writer.

Plan for the weekend is to finish the Halloween chapter, and continue building the timeline. Right now, I think Part One may come in about fourteen to eighteen thousand words, and if that’s the case, then a three-part story is going to come in short in terms of “winning” NaNo. Eighteen would get me over the line, but what I’m really shooting for is a sixty thousand words, because when it comes to getting your story published, most houses won’t look at anything under sixty thousand words. Just ask anyone who submitted they manuscript to Harper Voyager.

Do the math, and I need to write two thousand words a night. Not day, because I won’t have much time to write during the day, but night, because that’s then only free time I’ll have. Two thousand a night, about three hours of writing. Maybe four. Maybe I’ll write from 6 PM until 11 PM.

Doesn’t matter.

The novel gets written. Because that’s what writers do.