Where are you? (in your novel)

I'm — ughhhh — cutting the wonderful chapters I wrote last week.

Just realized I can't have Lily lusting after chicken soup when she has no appetite.

I like this thread.

John MacGregor has chased after the brother of the villain they were forced to murder, but he's lost outside in the blinding light of an apocalyptic wasteland. Relax! His wife has a welder's helmet and is looking out the window throught the tinted glass for him...

Back to smoothing out switchbacks at the end. Every time I think I'm nearly there, I discover I've inserted more switchbacks.

Why oh why can't I just let Lily decide to cope and sail off into the gathering storm?

Currently stuck on the revisions stage. I had a few people take a look at my first-ish draft and give general feedback, but i think I need a few more eyes on it to really focus on the things that need fixing. I just feel so blocked by uncertainty.

165 pages in, and things are trucking along a little better now. Digging into some of the psychology of the main character and about to start plugging away at the mystery.

Ending of Lily's Volume #1 has changed slightly--for the better, I'm convinced. Now I have to alter the beginning of her Volume #2 to conform.

This time, she's entirely self-sufficient, so I've got to show her paying her own tuition. Will she be smart enough to demand a receipt? Still of two minds. Right now, I'm thinking no, so she can worry about that later.

What? The poor girl doesn't have enough to worry about?

She does, but this would be a niggling worry without resolution, and what's the point of that.

So invent a resolution. You're the writer aren't you?

I've got other better resolutions in mind. You can muddy the waters with excess resolutions.

Coward.

In Story Form.

I'm in a series. The hero of this series came to me after the end of the third installment wherein he attempted to drown himself, and he said "I'm fed up with being the 'good guy'."

"What am I supposed to do about that?" I asked.

"Grant me the freedom to do all the stupid, dark, and trigger-worthy things that I want to do. I want to be the 'villain'."

I stared at him, blankly at first, but with a slow nod and finally a shrug, I said, "Whatever you do, make sure my readers get disgusted enough to put the book down."

His lips curled into a smug grin. He kept curling his fingers, clenching at the things whirling through his mind - I couldn't even begin to imagine what those ideas were.

At the time I had sat down to direct the rest of the team, he'd taken his place to begin the current installment. By the end of the first chapter, he made one thing clear: nothing was sacred. Several chapters afterward, I'd introduced him to a young woman with who I had the intention of being a nuisance in his life. Instead of allowing me the creative freedom I wanted, he took to breaking her head-strong, wanton nature by seducing her in a torturously meticulous, patient, and slow manner that was so utterly sensual, I had to halt production for three days.

It was some chapters later, after accepting his demanding sexuality, that he met with a friend. Again, I had specific intentions regarding her, but he also stole the lead right out of my hands. He also got her pregnant. On the night of a world-wide orgy-like festival, he ripped her clothes off and threw her into a sexually inflamed sea of sweat-laden men and women. With a sickening grin on his face, he reveled in the way they vehemently ravaged her.

He looked at me with piercing, bright eyes. "Do you despise me? Do you hate what I'm doing, how I'm affecting your work?"

Was I appalled at him, or his actions? Surely, I should be. But I wasn't. I shrugged.

"How could you still love me, after what I've done, and knowing what I'm going to do? I'm ruining your image."

"As a young writer I was told that a character wasn't 'real' like a person unless they could 'surprise' me." I watched his expression go from defiant glee to one of tame disarray. "Congratulations," I said, "You exist. I hope you're happy with that."

He remained there like the shed husk of a cicada, and I went over to a lesser, though still important character. While he stared with mute lips, I began coaching this other character for the role that he was about to take on, due to the newfound villain's actions.


Tl;dr:

Soon enough, we'll be moving on into the next installment. I'm terribly, terribly excited over it.

I'm trying to wade through a chapter where my MC has to hold her own in a medieval council where she is the only woman, and it is the first time she's allowed to speak. The chapter 1) must be included; 2) does not stir my creative juices; 3) makes her - and me - find some way to get her male peers to see her as a serious member of the ruling body.

Editing and wondering if the project is in any way good. First section is presented as a kind of transcript for my protagonist's thoughts which have been recorded by a brain implant. Right now I'm just looking over spelling and what not before seeking betas. I'm a terrible judge of my own work, and feel it's missing something I can't identify...

They've just reached Trille and Shiani will soon be thrown into the dungeons. This is going to be a tough time for her, where she's beaten, harassed, and humiliated.

Was able to edit chapter 5 in 2 days, and am a third of the way into chapter 6. It's going a little too way right now, and that has my insecurity flaring up.

Sixteen-year-old Anne has just walked Rhino back to his paddock after successfully diffusing a stand-off during which a police officer nearly took a shot at the 1600Kg animal with his service pistol.

I'm rearranging chapters and inserting new chapters, I have the romance happening way to soon and its rushed. Somewhere along the line I lost the direction I was headed so now I need to fix that.

I've just finished writing the First Plot Point (aka Point of No Return) and I'm terribly excited going into the next phase of plot development.

Currently I'm stuck half way through chapter 5, wondering if it is boring. I think I need to step away for a few days, focus on something else.

My first novel is being proofread by an English teacher. Query letter is finished (I hope). And in my second novel (a sequel to the first), the MC and her husband, Pharaoh Khufu, are jumping through the door of eternity to go to prehistoric Egypt.

Working on Volume #3. Lily thinks she's recovered from the loss of her adopted family, but she's run out of the hair goop they used to make together, and must again face the pain of losing them--then rise above it and congratulate herself on her resilience.

It's part of her building a shaky scaffold of reconstructed life that's going to collapse into near ruins within the next 50 pages or so.

I am one chapter away from finishing the first draft of the first half, and it's killing me.

50k words of my YA Contemporary revised, 20-25k left. I can do this...

Okay I'll jump on this.

Currently restructuring chapter 2. Aspen is learning about synthetic foods. However she is left with more questions than any soluble answer.

Finished editing chapter7. Ari's lover Jeoram proposes, and she wants to start a new life with him, but her past is holding her back.

I'm having an acid trip on a Florida beach, uhh, I mean, page 54 of revising a 324-page epistolary rock and roll monomyth set in the early 1970s.

Still planning, after, literally, years. Got the setting, the characters, themes, a few scenes written, ideas for sequels ... everything except the actual words on paper telling the story to people who aren't me.

NOT moving ahead with Volume #3 and the hair goop situation. Writers' group friends agree that Lily's going to become friends with the seamstress.

Sure enough, I'd slipped into suggesting that.

Re-write time. Lily's got to be friendless--again. Poor kid.