I’m gonna finish my first draft of MMPC tonight! I’m telling both my writing groups and I’m posting about it here. I have less than half a chapter left, and less than two hours left in 2021. I’ll update this post once both of those are finished.
12:05 AM
Well, I’m not done yet–but house rules dictate the day isn’t really over until I go to bed anyway xD
I’m liking how this chapter is going, though. I have the actual ending written, I just need to fill in the middle of the chapter, and it’s pretty interesting so far–just a last little mystery to investigate and kind of wrap things up, and something I could use to jump off of if I wanted to write that sequel I have really vague ideas for.
Melody and Tea are doing a bit of Indiana Jones-ing in the wizard’s mansion, looking for dangerous things they might need to dispose of, and valuable things they might need to salvage.
My idea for the sequel is–this isn’t the first place the wizard has lived. He’s got another hideout somewhere else. Tea would get his own quest (and his own good spirit) to go investigate it and make everything safe, before the artifact that keeps the evil spirits from ransacking the place and using its magic to wreak havoc runs out of power. Meanwhile, there are secrets about magic to uncover that might change how life works in the Valley forever.
It’s not a very clear story idea yet though. I have a vague premise and an idea of how the first couple chapters would go, and a couple neat reveals. That’s not enough to make a story.
I’m getting tired, so I’m going to stop writing this and go back to MMPC, so I can go to bed.
12:30 AM
I may be having too much fun with this. I normally don’t post first drafts here, but…
The chest held a bottle full of an unknown dark green potion, a threatening-looking smaller box made of fire-blackened wood, and…
“Cheese crackers?” Tea guessed. “Ugh, did he eat in bed? No wonder the ‘coons are trying to get in.”
“I’m more concerned about the other stuff. Tea, do you have those flour sacks?”
“Right here.”
Melody took one and decided to improvise. She touched her magic source again and said: “Creator, bless this bag to contain the evil magic which might harm us.” A song answered, and the flour sack glowed briefly. Melody put it over her hands, inside out, and then grabbed the potion and the box through the sack.
Tea laughed. “It’s an oven mitt for evil!”
This is much easier than it was in mid-November. Remember when I kept sitting around for hours before words would show up? Also, the writing quality was… not good. But never mind, I’ll fix it in post.
1:44 AM
Tonight’s wordcount: 3310
(at least? I also cut and edited some stuff from the old draft of this chapter, so it’s hard to say exactly. possibly more.)
I could probably keep writing, but this chapter is growing deceptively long–I wonder how much I’ll cut from it later, or if I’ll have to split it into two or mark it as an epilogue or what. It may or may not have another 2k words of story to go. I can’t tell. I’m very tired, so I’m just going to go to bed before my writing quality starts to tank. I’ll finish the rest tomorrow… er, later today.
“Half a chapter,” sure. 3.3k is a long chapter on its own, past me…!
I’ll just keep updating this post after I catch 8 hours.
12:18 AM, Jan 2
Welp. I’ve spent all day sore and tired and why does it always take me forever to get over the flu?
Never mind that. I have writing to do. There’s got to be an end to this book.
2:10, Jan 2
Tonight’s wordcount: 1,432
I’m almost done. No, really. Almost… done…
Maybe 600 more words? Just that little bit more, to connect what I just wrote to my ending? Heck, we both know I’ll make a mockery of my own estimates again tomorrow night. I’ll be another 1.4k in and it’ll be 3AM before I finish this thing.
I almost feel like I’m writing a separate short story that happens to wrap up a set piece from the main novel, rather than a last chapter. I may end up changing my chapters around and marking this as an epilogue later, but if I do that, then I’ll have to come up with a second “last line,” separate from the joke this mini-arc ends on.
That’s a problem for future Jade. Present Jade needs to take some NyQuil and go to bed.
(Current wordcount for the project as a whole is about 65k. A little high, I’ll probably do some trimming, but not bad. That number does include a lot of notes-to-self for future editing purposes, so it’s not all prose.)