Book Two Outline Phase

I am deep into outlining Book Two. I am a planner, not a pantser. When I write by the seat of my pants I produce a lot of dead end story lines and wasted time. Because of this tendency, I invest heavily in the planning process.

The nice part is that this is Book Two and my world and 80% of the characters have already been created and are well established. This means that my planning is now mostly focused on creating the time line and storyboard.

Right now I am filling in the specifics in a very detailed outline. I love this process. It really puts my brain into the story, thinking about and imagining every scene. I don't think in words, in my mind the story plays out like a movie. If I don't like the way the movie is playing, I hit the rewind and re-direct the scene.

The process is extremely helpful when the actual writing begins. I have seen the scenes before, in great depth, and the writing process is much easier for it. My outline includes little details that are key to setting the tone. I am actually considering importing my outline into the novel itself, and basically overwriting it as I go. This will eliminate flipping back and forth between documents. I'll try it out and let you know how it goes.

When will I write sentence #1? My guess is somewhere around June 15th. How long will it take to write the novel? This is a tough question. Most of Eternal Knight was written in one summer, just before my daughter was born. This time I won't have the luxury of long stretches of uninterrupted writing time. Writer's Block won't be a problem (I think). I know the story too well. Finding the time to write... that will be the challenge. Realistically, I need to have most of the manuscript completed by September if I want to get the book out early in the new year.

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Other Info:

You have four days left if you want to enter my Kindle/Nook/Amazon Gift Card contest. Check out the link at the top of the page for information.

The newspaper article I mentioned in my last blog post was very complementary, however they did get the time wrong for my Book Release Party on June 4th. The party will run from 2-4 PM at Wissahickon High School. And the error could have been mine. I could easily have accidentally told the reporter the incorrect time.