Since Harbinger released, I’ve been pouring my writing energy into its sequel, Suture.
While I don’t know that I’m the one who should be giving writing advice, I figured someone might find an interest in my current writing process.
Yes, I say current because I believe that as I continue to grow as a writer, my process will evolve. At least, that’s my hope, because my current process is tedious at best.
Right now I’m 23,000+ words into Suture. I’ve accomplished this through some forethought, much humming and hawing, and just forcing myself to spew words. Thankfully, this haphazard approach has yielded something that is starting to look like a decent first act. This is a pretty critical time in my process and it’s when I bring in the big guns. My wife.
See, my wife is a voracious reader who devours everything from Nietzsche to Twilight. She’s a massive Star Wars nerd who can recite the original trilogy from memory and who can have an intelligent conversation about why the fourth Indiana Jones movie never should’ve happened. In short, she’s perfectly suited to tell me if I’m on track or missing my mark.
Because of the loose way I plot on the go, I need this feedback at the approximate third way mark. At this point, I’ve written enough that I have a clearer path for the rest of the novel. On the other hand, I haven’t written so much that I can’t handle axing a few thousand words to change a direction or two. This feedback helps give me direction. But more than that, it helps to give me some confidence.
Writing is a wonderful and horrifying hobby. Creating worlds and characters feels magical, but words on a page feel like an invite for self criticism and, at times, loathing. For every sentence I love, there are dozens that make me shudder. It’s why some authors take forever to release a novel. Having someone tell me I’m on the right track helps bolster my confidence and allows me to carry on to the end.
So Suture is getting the third-way-there preview. I’ll let you know how it goes in a couple days.