Writing Magic

I haven't posted in a while because I haven't really written much in a while, except the occaisional blog post. I did pick up a couple of books about writing books from the library. Actually, one of them is about just writing--it's called Writing Magic by Gail Carson Levine. I'm actually enjoying reading this one--it's like a course in creative writing. I've not actually had any sort of formal encouragement in creative writing since maybe high school--most of my writing in college was criticism or analysis of literature.

Each little chapter gives you some aspect to think about, and I'm trying to resist the urge to read the entire book cover to cover. Then again, I've had it for two weeks, so I guess I am successfully resisting the urge to read it cover to cover. I am trying to read at most one chapter a night and to let the suggestions sort of sink in. Each chapter has one or more "exercises" that I'm not finding the time to try out (writing portions of stories from different points of view, etc). I kind of wish I were because it might be good practice for me. But if I find time to write, I'm trying to actually work on my book-in-progress.

I finally finished one of the key scenes tonight--one I've titled (unimaginitively) "big kiss scene :). So as currently written, the book has most of the major bones of the plot. The ending I wrote back in November is going to change, however. It ends the story but doesn't really wrap it up and I think that there's a sort of continuous-theme-thing running through the book that should be brought into it a little more. Plus, I have another sub plot resolution (two really) about my "hero" that I don't want to share with the protagonist just yet. She needs to suffer a little longer and have things out with him at the end, and if I just write the scenes chronologically as they happen, it won't develop as much anxiety with the reader. That's the intent anyway--make her suffer, make the reader suffer along with her, and then finally resolve things at the end.

Current word count--almost 55k. I think with the new ending (which will be pretty substantial), and other identified smaller scenes, I will end up with a nicely sized work--probably well over 70k, maybe 80-90. I'm more worried about the plot than the word count, but after NaNo, it's kind of a habit to check my word count before I close it down for the night.

Now, I'll start having to come up with a title. The only one I've identified so far is maybe "Chivalrous", but I'm not thrilled with it. It's a start.