OK, I said I’d post updates on how things are going. This week wasn’t bad, but everything is taking longer than I think it should (longer in the more-words-and-scenes sense, rather than longer in the more-time-to-write-one-scene sense). In one way, this is good; it means there’s lots of juice in this story. In another way, not so good – I can only type so fast, so the more words it takes to get where I want to go, the more time it takes to get there…and I only have two weeks left. (Eeeek!)
However, I got about halfway through the second-to-last plot point (which I thought would take two chapters, but looks like taking four). I have completed my probably-final-version of my working plot outline (normally, at this point in writing a book, I’ve quit rewriting my plot outline, because I’m too close to the end to bother, but when I have this much to finish in only two weeks, I need the road map).
I also dug out my copy of Campaign Cartographer and laid out a map, which I hope will be included in this book. (An awful lot of readers seem to think Mill City is in Missouri, for some reason, even though Missouri is much too far south to be part of the North Plains Territory and is on the wrong side of the river to boot. I’m hoping a map will help with that.)
North Columbia (Continent map)
It won’t be in color in the book, of course (assuming they use it), but it”s a lot easier and more fun to do it in color in the program. I apologize that it’s blurry; converting it and uploading it and getting it to a reasonable size for the blog was a little tricky. There are still a lot of blank spaces (somebody has settled south of the Rio Grande and in Cuba, but it hasn’t come up in the story yet, so I’m not tied down as to exactly who that might be; I’m leaning toward some sort of joint venture). The really blurry label in the upper right on top of Newfoundland is “Vinland,” and the three blurry cities on the East Coast are New Amsterdam, Philadelphia, and Washington. Mill City is in the middle of the country, just below Lake Superior on the Mammoth River.
And before somebody yells at me for playing around with maps instead of writing, I needed this much to go in the book and to place everything (there are some really tiny labels that don’t show on this version, but show the key settlements they visit), and even though it would be enormous fun, I’m not planning on doing any more work on it until AFTER the draft is finished and in.
Which I am now going back to work on. 🙂
Brilliant! I love a map. It really helps me visualize where people are in relation to other events and how long journeying takes.
Maps definitely help the writing process – I just reached a point in a rewrite where having a map helped me past a major plot point.
So it’s not at all procrastination! 😉
Alex and Miss Clark – Maps are one of the few things in my stories where I feel I can keep control. My characters may come up with strange, unanticipated things out of the blue, but my mountains rarely do.
“My characters may come up with strange, unanticipated things out of the blue, but my mountains rarely do.”
I’ve been wondering. In Thirteenth Child, there is a major family event around the middle of the book, and one family member declines to participate. Was that as much of a shock to you as it was to the rest of us?
(Hope it’s clear. I’m trying not to spoil the plot for those who haven’t read it.)
Nct2 – That particular event wasn’t planned from the very start of the book, but I wasn’t very many chapters in before I knew that the event (or something very like it) was coming. And I knew from the characters’ first appearance that that particular character was going to be trouble, one way or another. The things that came out of nowhere in Thirteenth Child were things like Miss Ochiba’s new job and various characters’ personalities.