Ripples in Speculative Fiction

Well, I missed another blog update for September. Once again, I was in the heat of drafting and opting to use all my writing time to try and get to a natural stopping point.

I am still at 75% on MK2 by the way I count things. I break up the MK novels into four parts and I’ve written (and edited!) parts 1-3. But I also include Interlude chapters between the major parts. It’s a way to visit with other characters and give depth and reader awareness to other things that are happening behind the scenes that the main characters may not be present for or have visibility into.

I actually rather enjoy writing the Interlude chapters—I think because it adds a depth and richness to the story and helps me flush out what’s happening. I spent most of my time between the last blog post and this one writing three interlude chapters that ended up totaling around 12k words which is a lot for Interlude chapters—but so much was happening!

I had to weave through a new thread between Parts 2&3 and 3&4 and that took most of the time to flush that out. All new characters, all new settings, and I had it to tie it all in with the wider story. It took a bit to come together, but I am quite pleased.

Once I hit publish on this blog post I am going to start drafting Part IV. I had estimated I needed another 30k words to wrap it up and at 10k words per month that puts in me finishing up around  January. I had hoped to finish it before the end of the year, but the Interludes took longer than anticipated. I may still be able to wrap it up by years end. We have time off around Thanksgiving and Christmas and the end of novels tend to write faster for me as I get motivated to wrap it up.

The problem, of course, is that I am a pantser. I make it up as I go. I have no idea how this novel ends. But it’s never stopped me before (although it has slowed me down). There’s only one solution to that—butt in chair time.

Time to land this plane.