They say a picture is worth a thousand words¹:

Yup, you’re reading that right. Five days in and I decided to start over. Not only am I trying to write an entire novel² in a month, now I’m trying to do it in 23 days.

Basically, I got a few days in and realized that I was writing the same story I’ve written before. It had the same core of a story I wrote for The Gates of Heaven (not posted), the core as Confession, the same as Computational Demonology. In all three cases, the main character discovers the supernatural world and becomes a part of it.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love that sort of story³. But I wanted to try something different. So I tossed out what I’d written, rebuilt the characters to fit the new world, and outlined a new story.

le gasp

Yes, I actually outlined a story. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it (I’m sure I have), but I’m generally a pants’er. As in fly-by-the-seat-of… But hey, let’s try something new.

We have: target word counts, structural arcs, chapter titles (still making these up as I go), locations, times, characters, summaries, and effects. So far, it’s actually going pretty well. I’m not great at estimating what is large enough to make a chapter. Live and learn.

At this point, I don’t think I’m going to post the story while I’m writing it. If you’d like to read it though, post a comment or email me. I’d love to have beta alpha readers and I can add you to the Google Doc.