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Welcome to the In All Jest podcast.

I'm Darryl, your host, and each week I take you on a hero's journey.

I leave my safe, normal world and face many obstacles on my quest to publish not just one but six epic fantasy novels. .

I hope you'll come along for the ride.

You can find out more information at kingdarryl.com/podcast.

Hey there. This is episode 20 recorded on March the fifth, 2021. And the big question in everyone's minds is did I meet my deadline?

Since Last Time

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And so did I meet my deadline? Does anyone I eat chocolate? No, they don't. First off, I didn't even get to record an in-between episode last week. I'm sorry about that. But it was a crazy week and my focus was pretty much on trying to get the first draft finished. So where did I end up? Well I wrote 26,449 words.

Which was okay, over the last two weeks. It was a net gain of only 21,778, which means in theory that I only have 12,035 words left. However, I do not think the story will be done exactly at 200,000 words. And frankly it's anyone's guess how many more words I will need to write? I could knock over 12,000 words in the next two or three days easily, but right now it's more about getting back to my consistent 1800 to 2300 words a day and  just do it and finish the story as it finishes. I would like to think the next five to 10 days will be enough. I'm going to keep trying to work on that, but we will have to wait and see.

Where is the story at?

I'm completely in the final act of the book. The ending payoff, the resolutions, that's where I'm at bringing all of the story parts to a close or those that are going to completely close out in this book or the resolutions or partial resolutions for some of the story threads. Being a long form series in multiple volumes, there are continuing threads, in some instances, of course. And not everything closes out, but the things that need to close out, I'm working through getting those done. There's a lot of them to work on lots of plot threads that are happening. Lots of situations that are going on that I have to work with. I'm also having to work with a number of the older chapters.

I did mention in the last episode that at the end of the book, I had a number of older chapters. They really slow me down. I mentioned that before next time around, I won't have that situation. And the rework changes the way I have to do things in my brain, and I prefer not to be doing it, but they do exist and they have a reason for existing and I'm rewriting them around that.

But it means my gains after writing 3000 words might be 300 words, which can be pretty frustrating.

There was an interesting resolution in something that happened. Something that I worked through in the last fortnight, which was enjoyable, was I needed to continue something that was happening in this book. I needed a way to make it fit into all the timelines and inadvertently it turned out that something I had written in book one, matched up perfectly with this and allowed for this to happen.

I would love to say that I completely planned that when I did book one, that wasn't the case. The thing that I am talking about stood on its own in book one perfectly, and the beginning of book two it just worked. It was what it was. However, the situations that's come up now at the end of the book for a character needing to do something there needed to be an Avenue to achieve that.

And it'll tie it up really nicely. And I really enjoyed that. I would like to think I had done it totally planned, but I didn't, it does feel though the, when it fits together nicely like that, that the story is progressing naturally. And it's almost like things weren't contrived and that they naturally came together because that was a good conclusion of things.

And it was just a natural way to use it rather than, or how can I twist this event to work that way. I was working out what would need to happen, how long it would take. And I had a, how question? How will that work out? And it went, Oh, it'll work out by following this path. So I'm very happy with that.

There's been a number of things continuing on that I'm learning about the problems and the good things about what I'm doing in this book, which will set me up for book three. I'm pretty happy about what that will look like. I'm excited for when I do get there that I'll have a new process again, to continue writing in a better format.

There is a bit of stress I'm carrying around because I didn't meet my deadline. I do like to achieve things when I say, I'm going to do them. I am a little bit bothered that I didn't, it took a couple of days to get past that. Now I'm just trying to focus on finishing, but it's disappointing, ultimately though it's about getting the story, right, not just meeting a deadline. So as long as I don't let it drag out, it's just the way it is. And I can only do it one bite at a time.

I did mention that I'm trying to bring all these threads together and I'm going through some issues with that. I'm, just having to line things up and it is complex.

And I mentioned it before, so I can imagine in the future, by the way, I'm going to outline things that I'll have less issues with that because I'll be working sequentially. And I think that's an important part for it. At the moment, I don't necessarily write sequentially. I do things in chunks based around how the writing's going.

Whereas with the outline and writing from beginning to end following the outline or albeit there might be a little bit of movement in there, and the story will still evolve. I feel like I won't have these particular obstacles or delays in the way that I'm addressing things. And right now, as I try to bring all threads together, I'm crossing over and double checking and having to go back.

Whereas if I do that in the outlining phase, and I know exactly what's crossing over, when I sit down to write, I think that'll work out really well. There's a death coming. It's part of the story I know about it, but I have been procrastinating around it.

I think I know why there might be other reasons. I do think it's part of the sequencing issue that I just mentioned and that, because a couple of other situations, haven't quite caught up to where that is, I don't want to finish that off because there's going to be, a crossing over of timelines and things that will bear into that.

So now I'm trying to bring everything into sequence and work through from a point in the timeline down, and I know where this particular death is going to occur and who's involved.  But I believe I just need to get that right, but it is being procrastinated on maybe it's because of who and what it is and how it's happening, but I'll have to learn about that when I get there.

And, with all these threads, I do have one small concern that maybe I've completely missed something that's hanging around, from earlier in the book, in my notes. And I just haven't brought it through. At this point in the story, that's gonna be something, I pick up in my editing cycle. So there's not much I can do about that really. It should stand out in the editing process, particularly the way I spreadsheet out my first story grid review of it. I'll be able to really identify those quite quickly so that I'll be able to tick off that concern when I get there. But that is something that's floating around.

What comes next?

Pretty obvious I think. I've got to finish the story. So just getting completed  in a way that I'm happy with. I don't expect it to be a hundred percent perfect. It is a first draft, but I need to make sure that I'm not just rushing through it. I need to get it done. Just work through. Finish those scenes and chapters that I need doing take a couple of days off and then just get straight into the editing process.

So over the next few weeks, until it is done, I will be writing every day and bringing it to a close.

One Bite at a Time

Chapter Ten  (Audio Only). [ 00:09:01 ]

Outro