Moving On

The Man in a Box finally went to the editor earlier this week. I don’t know how long the whole thing would take, but I’m aiming to release the story at the end of this month or at the beginning of May. With that story done Falaha’s series is completed.

I’m also two chapters into my fresh WIP, Rjg. It’s still a bit awkward to switch to another story and voices, even though Falaha’s story and Rjg share a character. I’m still carefully moving around, discovering who my characters are, how they fit into the narrative, what their true voices are, though I had outlined the first twenty chapters prior starting to write. I am pleased with the fact that both of my main men already surprised me. I know the story will turn out anything but what I had in mind when I wrote that outline — my mind never follows what already been written and I’m back to pantsing as a natural progression of events.

The world is taking a lovely and unusual shape, and maybe I will not waste my time on doing most of the worldbuilding at all. I will be discovering things as I go. There are many, many things I don’t know yet and I’m looking forward to learn about them. I haven’t even updated the old map I drew a couple of years ago.

Once I’m in my characters’ heads, I no longer need any pointers. Some notes along the way will do, but nothing more.

I dropped the idea of buying Scrivener. After toying with the software for a couple of days I made a conclusion that it is too daunting to learn this new tool. I don’t need it, though I write in both linear and non-linear fashion. I’m used to keeping many things and have weird things going on in my head and still be effective, finishing what I started. I don’t need any software to put my thoughts in order, that’s why I’m fairly comfortable with MS Word 2010. Having a next blank page to fill every time the file gets opened and nothing else is freedom. I shall enjoy it.