New Novel Update #1: It's Complicated.

This is why I'm not an illustrator.

Let's call this one "DW" for now.

It's been a busy month of cracking down on my Work In Progress. While there haven't been a ton of pages added to the total manuscript length, I've sorted through many of the over-arching issues that have been holding me back, and for that, I'm pretty dang proud.

DW has the most pieces involved of anything I've ever attempted to write before. It's layered with mysteries, and keeping straight who knows what when has seriously stressed me out. So I decided enough was enough, and a couple weeks back I went to town on several in-depth outlines. I did one for every major character/character group. The story is told in first person, but there's a lot going on under the surface to keep track of, so I have to know who's doing what (even if my main character doesn't).

On top of outlining the entire novel over ten different times in different ways, I did character maps, 3 Act breakdowns, and a ton of scribblings on "surprises" and "key scenes". And in the past week, this has finally allowed me to get back into writing this story. 

Phew.

For those curious, it's another Middle Grade speculative-fiction-esque adventure, like all my stories tend to be. But this one is by far the most challenging, complicated tale I've ever committed to telling.

I'm hoping that will translate it to being the best tale I've ever committed to telling, but I suppose we'll just have to wait and see about that.

For now, enjoy the current theme song for DW, and have fun speculating what in the world I could be writing about!