Two weeks ago, I jokingly wished that I could double my wordcount every week. I never actually thought that I'd be able to do it. But somehow, I managed to do just that.
As of right now, Failstate has grown to 20,907 words, which means that over the course of the past week, I somehow managed to write 9,316 words. That's really not too shabby. I doubt I'll be able to maintain my velocity, especially since next week is Ash Wednesday and that means a lot more work and a lot less caffeine for yours truly.
But once again, I had a weird revelation about my book, one that I thought I'd share.
Earlier this week, I was slaving away on a scene and I was having a rough time with it. As a matter of fact, Failstate has been kind of a slog so far. I couldn't quite put my finger on why, but it seemed like each page was an intense labor, like I had to force myself to keep writing. I wasn't all that happy with the way things were turning out.
So I'm working on this scene, sweating each word, sure that I'm producing garbage (you know, the usual writer lament). And I got interrupted. I had to leave the computer and go do something, I don't remember what. When I came back, suddenly the words started flowing easily. I felt lighter.
It took me three sentences before I realized I had accidentally switched perspectives.
See, I had started writing the book in third person. When I started, I thought that would be good. It would allow me to "head hop" if I needed to. But this past week, I accidentally started writing in first person and it seemed to flow a lot better. It felt more natural. It felt fun.
I gave it some thought. I'm pretty sure I won't be "head hopping" after all. The whole story can be told from Failstate's perspective. So I decided I would write a chapter or two in first person and see what happened.
Well, I guess we can see what happened. I've racked up my highest wordcount on this project to date and things are falling into place.
The downside to all of this is that I'll have to majorly rework the first fifty pages or so, but hey, that's what the rewriting process is all about, right?
Now I have another week to go before Lent is upon us. I doubt I'll do as good as I did this week, but it does give me an impressive standard to shoot for, right?
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2 comments:
One of the "tricks" I learned a long time ago was when the writing gets too hard, change perspective. I changed heads a lot in my most recent mss. Glad to hear you've got your groove back. Looking forward to the results.
Wow, I hope that works out for you..... I have been thinking about switching to first-person for a story I am working on and seeing if that flows better.
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