Been slogging my way through edits today and just finished Chapter 5. I forgot how much stuff happens in that first few chapters! But I think I’ve put in *most* of the major scenes that I wanted. Most of the work that needed to be done was in the first few chapters. In fact, I’ve added a prologue, completely rewritten Chapter 1, and added a few scenes and characters. Now as I’m going through the regular edits, it’s just making sure that I keep my facts straight. It’s a lot to keep up with, but the results (I believe!) will be worth it!

Now heading off to detox my brain for a bit. If you need me, I’ll likely be on a game of some sort. 😉

Summary: A ten-year-old girl named Suzie has her small, close-knit world fall apart around her. Her family just moved to the town of Leekston at the beginning of summer, and she and a boy named Fred struck up a friendship almost immediately. But something watches them from the woods, waiting to strike. As Suzie’s life falls apart around her, can she solve the mystery of what’s really going on in this strange rural town?

Project: Suzie’s Nightmare – Draft 3
Deadline: 9/30/2011 – Coming along quite well for this deadline!
New words written: 380
Present total word count: 81,327
Total Word Count for 2011: 101,640

Suzie investigates the disappearance and ends up getting into an argument with Caroline. Not too much added as far as a word count, but it’s mostly edit work anyway. I’m always either taking out or adding in, so I guess it evens out afterwards. I’m about halfway to catching up with what my second volunteer editor has read, so I’m excited to *almost* be done.

Feels like I’m always *almost* done with this piece – but each revision gets me a little bit closer to a finished, shinier piece!

Finally shrugged off the writing slump I’ve been in for a bit. This bit that I’ve written certainly isn’t the most thrilling bit of the story, but it’s necessary for the plot to unfold the way I have planned. And it sets up the environment a bit more so that there’s not this foggy block from one room to the next within the school. Sure, it’s not necessary to give every brick a name, but there needs to be more explanation about where things are. Just glad to have gotten some writing in over lunch! =D

Summary: A ten-year-old girl named Suzie has her small, close-knit world fall apart around her. Her family just moved to the town of Leekston at the beginning of summer, and she and a boy named Fred struck up a friendship almost immediately. But something watches them from the woods, waiting to strike. As Suzie’s life falls apart around her, can she solve the mystery of what’s really going on in this strange rural town?

Project: Suzie’s Nightmare – Draft 3
Deadline: 9/30/2011 – We’ll see, deadline! We’ll see!
New words written: 2,088
Present total word count: 80,947
Total Word Count for 2011: 101,260

Suzie and Fred meet up at lunch and discuss their morning adventures. Suzie describes the trash talk Kate and her friends were doing, and Fred explains in not-quite-full detail how he got his bruises and bandages. Don’t worry – he’ll divulge more in future chapters!

Updating my word count, though this is more of a two-day update than just today. But still, not too bad! Rewriting some of these sections, I’m really getting an understanding for how simplistic I made them from the beginning. It’s interesting how rewriting this is really giving me more of a sense for how I can insert new characters, and even add more drama to catch the reader’s attention. The story is meshing together far better than it did in my initial draft. I’m looking forward to having this ready soon!

I was talking with mistress_kabuki earlier today about our writing progress (it’s kind of a weekly thing we try to do), and it made me realize all over again how complex and multi-threaded Book 2 is going to be in November. I’ll definitely need to have some sort of outline on hand for it, or at least some written out listing of where I plan each character to go in the story, and what events I plan for them to have. That book is 25k in and I’ve only now hit the plot point that starts the rest of the gears turning. And let me see, there’s… maybe four plot threads that need to be woven together? I’ve got my work cut out for me! But for now, I’ll wet my teeth on this piece for a while, and see if I can’t spruce it up for an official ready-to-be-passed-around draft soon!

Oh and I finally got around to migrating this story into Scrivener. Thank goodness! I don’t think I would have been able to organize very well in Word, especially since I’m slowly taking out particular parts and moving things around. Scrivener is kind of beautiful for that, even though I’m using the Beta Windows version. =)

Summary: A ten-year-old girl named Suzie has her small, close-knit world fall apart around her. Her family just moved to the town of Leekston at the beginning of summer, and she and a boy named Fred struck up a friendship almost immediately. But something watches them from the woods, waiting to strike. As Suzie’s life falls apart around her, can she solve the mystery of what’s really going on in this strange rural town?

Project: Suzie’s Nightmare – Draft 3
Deadline: 9/30/2011
New words written: 4,614
Present total word count: 78,859
Total Word Count for 2011: 99,172

Suzie just met the girl, and already she’s getting in trouble about Kate Gilliman. The girl has already caused an argument between Suzie and her mom, and since her mother is also passive-aggressive, it’s very difficult to tell when the fight’s over with. They don’t exactly fight with yelling matches and insults. Instead they fight by not doing something like refusing to look at someone, or simply not speaking to them directly. In my experience that’s way more damaging than a slur can be. Either way, Suzie will have to come to terms with the issue, because her mother is still her mother. And Kate isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Don’t you feel like you’re just torturing your characters sometimes? xD