Today I will be getting a package in the mail. It will contain a couple of toys. I will not allow myself to touch those toys until my word count is at 225,000 or above. I’m presently at 224,000 (give or take a hundred words). I will make that happen in short order. I know I will. Not because the toys are showing up (though they are great motivation) but because I’ve been writing daily for five months now without fail. I’ve not missed a day. Sure I’ve had a couple days that were extremely light, but I’ve written daily and will continue to do so with or without the toys.

At they start they will be toys. Why? Because I’ll be playing with them to get them set up and discovering new uses for them. At present I’m not a gamer, but the two toys I’ve ordered (I’ll post about them tomorrow) will be used more for productivity with both my work and my writing. I know I won’t be utilizing them to their fullest, but they’re cool, I wanted them, I had a couple ideas what I’d be using them for. That and I felt that for sticking to my goal and getting way ahead of schedule, I deserved to spoil myself a little.

I know I ask this a lot, but if you’re a writer, what’s stopping you from writing daily? You can come here daily, see that I’m getting words out and those words add up quickly. Very quickly.

I won’t push and pry. Well, probably not until tomorrow’s Unorthodox Writing Tip anyway.

Of Gnomes and Dwarves is just as much fun to write as I remember. The original text only had one viewpoint with some head hopping. That was pretty much from Maus and Willie’s Point of View. I’ve changed that slightly. I’m now in Maus’s head a majority of the time and I’ve added scenes for Reeg and Semal. Semal is the main villain and we’ll get to see his mental breakdown in glorious detail throughout the book just as well see Maus come to grips with his own fears and preconceived notions about others. Willie, well, he’s Willie and always will be.

I asked my favorite daughter about Slick and Dorg. If you recall I was going to change the sex of these characters. I explained to her how they played in the book and she didn’t like the change. Based on her input and my own thinkings on the topic, they will not be changing. I don’t think the story will suffer for it. It will still be a fun story. I’m almost at the first scene with Slick

One thing I’ve noticed in the original writing. It was very fast-paced to the point where a lot of details were either glossed over very briefly or completely left out. I am, of course, filling in the blanks that I left behind in the original writing without even thinking about it. Things like descriptions, character’s feelings and inner monologue, background history, introspection, and better narration. And lots more dialog. I didn’t realize just how much the story was lacking. From what I can tell the story will probably come in around the 90,000 word mark without even trying hard.

Currently I’m 9 chapters in and already at 17,000 words. Compared to the original at the same point in the story where I was at roughly 6500 words. Granted there are new scenes, but the ones I’ve re-written are much richer and fuller than the previous writing. I don’t feel I’ve lost the original feel of the story, only improved upon it. I would think it difficult at this point to write the story worse. As I’ve said, I think I’m finally at the point as a writer where I can tell the story I want to tell.

This isn’t a bad thing, but I had many friends and family read the original. I got a lot of “This is really good”, “I liked it”, etc. I did get a couple “It’s missing something, but I’m not sure what” responses that I took to heart when I kept writing on this story over and over and over for many years. It wasn’t until I stopped working on it and started writing more words and more works that I realized what it had been missing. For some reason I was afraid to basically throw away the story again and start over. I’d done that a dozen times before and starting over seemed like work. Now, I look at it as needed and a fun trip back to where it all began.

I’ve got a lot to do today, so I’d better get at it. Sorry I didn’t post a duck picture today.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!