Another Milestone: 500,000 Words

And counting. I nearly missed this one — only yesterday I was still three or four hundred words away from it, and I do write slowly — but another scene is in and all of a sudden I am past 500K.

This is what happens when you start with a five-bullet-point outline, a strong sense of direction and absolutely no idea what you are doing.

Here it is (it is so short, I never even bothered to write it down, this is the first time):

• the girl and the guy meet
• the girl and the guy fall in love
• things get complicated
• etc., etc., etc. (and there is a dragon, of course)
• can’t tell (a plot twist and, like, totally unexpected resolution — done!)

I am at the “etc., etc., etc.” stage, thankfully, so I can see the “can’t tell” point more or less clearly. The plot twist is set up, all the players are in places; right now, they are — finally — talking to each other (comparing notes, so to say), plotting to hunt the Dragon. Despite all the tension between them, the chapter is still so idyllic that I am tempted to throw in a fistfight just to spice it up.

I might have a mob attack Kin Kind upon his arrival to The Oaken Chest — if only to showcase his Mender abilities. Oh, and Marque would likely get involved: say, the group of disturbed citizens decides to stone Kind — good luck hitting the target now, when the Nudger is messing up your aim — the problem is that Marque can only control one projectile at a time, but fear not! We have a nearly full Congregation here, let the Shifter stretch a little — he has been itching to pick a fight with someone since yesterday — or the Whisperer step in and simply cancel the quarrel altogether (no, done it already twice, note to myself: do not to use it again).

So many opportunities — and I was starting to worry that there is nothing left for me to discover. Void, there is. I just thought up a rather peculiar result of putting a Healer, a Mender, and a couple of Dragon eggshell scales together.

Yet there is much to be done, starting with my mantel, which still holds some unused items (although I more or less successfully dealt with a few already), specifically — a pain-enhancing potion, which has to be re-purposed somehow, and I do not want to go “well, I just added some stuff to it and boiled it again, and now it is going to do something totally different”.

That would be cheating, so off I go to discover that as well.

Another Thing

I am thinking about Interludes (yes, I have to go on with that sub-plot as well, and currently there is exactly zilch done about it) and it looks like the part that I call Prologue should only contain the fake quote. The whole story of Ethelle and The Red Trident is more fitted to be called Interlude I, or, better yet, Prelude: The Wayfarer. I am going to try it for now, and see, how it looks.

Still have to write them Interludes, hex.

And Another Thing

Apparently, Siri is now following me on Twitter.

Along with 1.5 million other people. Just sayin’.

69

Next round of chemo on Friday. Yay.

That’s all for the status update. Back to The Oaken Chest.

Originally published at The Tally of Words.