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annavereI'll admit to maybe making a few extra frivolous posts to get me here, but this is my hundredth post on Dreamwidth and I can auspiciously announce myself done with part five of Written on the Mirror. This means I have completed (barring last minute coats of paint or varnish and necessary alterations) one full quarter of the story. I want to post it all SO BADLY but while the four quarters do roughly have their own arcs (this first quarter the primary antagonist is the army camped at Four Roads), they aren't separate entities like the four parts of During the Dance, and thus I must resist or descend into madness.
Originally, I had the optimistic idea that I would breeze through the drafted portions quickly and the second unwritten half would be where my progress would slow way down, but I have now come through despairing calculations that I'll be finished roughly three years before the heat death of the universe to the other side where I feel cautiously confident in declaring that it's actually the drafted portion that is going to take me forever and once I get out of the flawed thicket I already made I'll be able to proceed at increased speed because I'll have the chance to do it right the first time.
Every solution, every new scene, or old scene improved, or minor character suddenly discovered to be a natural fit for a plotline, feels like a triumph. It's what keeps me from gnawing my own arm as I put my head down and barrel onward and wish I could go faster. At the same time, I've hit the Rubicon as the events of Interregnum get further and further away and I just have to hope everything remains in character. But since this is such a huge work, I have the joyous certainty that it can't all be bad, right?
An upside is, by this point, my original redrafting and retooling had gained me passable skill as a writer, necessitating far less (though still copious) rewriting than the previous portions required, and I expect the amount of decent sentences will continue to increase as I make it to the halfway point, where I realized I needed to go back to the beginning and clean it all up. This is a stupidly large scale story, which I will never again attempt. It would help if I stop adding scenes, but I'm an addict and a glutton for punishment.
Trivia for my future reference
Wordcount for part five? 25,019.
Part four? 21,806
Part three? 22,342
Part two? 15,587
Part one? 15,199
Total wordcount so far, and you better believe I'm bolding this: 99,953 words.
Markus is my most frequent viewpoint character, with Kurdy in second place. My most frequently appearing character is also Markus, this time with Smith in second place.
Originally, I had the optimistic idea that I would breeze through the drafted portions quickly and the second unwritten half would be where my progress would slow way down, but I have now come through despairing calculations that I'll be finished roughly three years before the heat death of the universe to the other side where I feel cautiously confident in declaring that it's actually the drafted portion that is going to take me forever and once I get out of the flawed thicket I already made I'll be able to proceed at increased speed because I'll have the chance to do it right the first time.
Every solution, every new scene, or old scene improved, or minor character suddenly discovered to be a natural fit for a plotline, feels like a triumph. It's what keeps me from gnawing my own arm as I put my head down and barrel onward and wish I could go faster. At the same time, I've hit the Rubicon as the events of Interregnum get further and further away and I just have to hope everything remains in character. But since this is such a huge work, I have the joyous certainty that it can't all be bad, right?
An upside is, by this point, my original redrafting and retooling had gained me passable skill as a writer, necessitating far less (though still copious) rewriting than the previous portions required, and I expect the amount of decent sentences will continue to increase as I make it to the halfway point, where I realized I needed to go back to the beginning and clean it all up. This is a stupidly large scale story, which I will never again attempt. It would help if I stop adding scenes, but I'm an addict and a glutton for punishment.
Trivia for my future reference
Wordcount for part five? 25,019.
Part four? 21,806
Part three? 22,342
Part two? 15,587
Part one? 15,199
Total wordcount so far, and you better believe I'm bolding this: 99,953 words.
Markus is my most frequent viewpoint character, with Kurdy in second place. My most frequently appearing character is also Markus, this time with Smith in second place.
