Three More Chapters of Rubbed Out Complete!

I had one of my best writing days of all time yesterday.  It snowed most of the day here, and in the morning I settled into a table at a favorite coffee shop, watched the snow, and picked up Chapter 5.  The revelation I'd experienced in the shower on Monday pumped new life and suspense into Chapter 5, which I finished quickly.

Then it was on to Chapter 6, which moved the near-death experience plotline begun in Chapter 5 forward.  Before I realized it, that chapter was also complete.

Next up was Chapter 7, which shifted the story back to the plotline of Max beginning his search for Ae-Cha in California.  I stopped and looked at the clock.  It was only 11:00; I'd been writing for a little more than two hours.  Things were just rolling!

I was writing long-hand, as I have yet to spring for a MacBook.  That is a gift I am going to buy myself sooner than later.  I still like to write away from home for now, and that means either going to a computer lab at a local university or library, or writing long-hand in a coffee shop.  Due to the snow yesterday, I chose the coffee shop.

I turned the page and began Chapter 7, and my pen promptly ran out of ink.  Surprising, considering I'd just started using it a few days ago, but I wasn't worried.  I had a spare.  I wrote three words with the spare, and it too ran dry.  So, what to do with this unexpected setback?  Stop for the day and leave?   Not a chance.  I went to the counter and asked the very friendly barista if she had an extra pen, and she said she had plenty of them.  I borrowed one, sat back down, and returned to Chapter 7.

It took about an hour to knock out Chapter 7, and I decided to return home and transcribe what I'd written onto my iMac.  After a hearty lunch I did just that, and it turns out that I'd written around 3,500 words.  The average hardcopy book that you pick up in your favorite bookstore holds between 325 and 350 words per page, so my production equated to 10 finished pages.  Such is my pace.  But I was thrilled with how the story was progressing, as well as its structure.

I gave the pages to my wife, my first and most trusted reader, who read them that night.  She made some great suggestions on chapter sequence, gave great feedback on what worked for her and what should be made more robust, then went to sleep.

This morning, I made those fixes, and in between appointments, wrote half of the next chapter.  Tomorrow and Friday are set aside strictly for writing, and I can't wait to get back at it.  I know what is going to happen in the next several chapters, so getting back into the flow of writing them should be easy.  The manuscript is sitting at around 9,400 words right now, or about 1/7th complete.

I hope your week is as productive as mine!  Enjoy your Wednesday and read something today that helps you escape to somewhere you'd really like to be!  Thanks for reading.  -Jon