A Change in Plans

"What do you mean I said chapter 2 was going to be titled 'The Funeral?' I never said that. It was always going to be 'The L-Bo,'" he lied.

You know how it goes. The best laid plans...

As you can see, according to my very rough chapter outline I seemed to have put the chapters out of order. However, while I've been struggling to write "The Funeral" as I originally planned, with the introduction and tour to the Lunar Base of Operations to come after, I realized I made a mistake.

On paper it made sense. Leave for the moon. On the moon is the funeral. Start by leaving for the moon, then have the funeral.

Unfortunately, for a story to be told there needs to be some connective tissue. To further complicate that need for connective tissue, I don't do well when I try to not over-explain. Therefore, I shuffled the order a bit. This change has allowed me to not rush into and through that chapter. Even though it's a memorial service for two fictional characters that we haven't spent any time with, it feels immoral to not properly honor them. Especially when both characters are important to Ptolemy and his journey.

Behind the scenes, I've also made a slight change to my writing setup since my last post. Previously when I wrote, I would simply open up the file and start typing. Now, I work with three files open simultaneously.

The first is the actual draft. It's where the story goes. Pretty important for writing.

Next, the "Saves the Cat" outline. I don't often reference this page, but if I have any ideas for future story beats I put them here. Plus, I keep a list of character names here. There aren't many, but it helps.

Finally, the third is my edit notes page. This is where I put all my thoughts on errors I think I've made in the chapter that I'm currently writing. These are notes to future me to either answer a question I didn't have at the time, add details I forgot, or clarify information that I don't think I did a good enough job of doing a few paragraphs back.

I know what you are thinking. "But Ryan, why would you make notes about changing that in the future and not just taking care of it while you are writing it when the thought occurs to you?"

I agree. It's nonsense. I'm already here, I should just change it now. I completely agree with you.

However, I also recognize that that mindset and style of writing is what has kept me from getting very far into this novel in the past. At this point, I am further into any single attempt of Ptolemy's Tales as I have ever been. I have not yet surpassed the word count that I have put in to previous attempts, but none of the past attempts were coherent and continuous.

I would start writing, then think of something small that could be expanded upon in the beginning. So, I would go back and start expanded. And then the things I wrote after no longer made sense, so I would rewrite that. This rewrite would lead to another thought, so I would go back.

Other times I wouldn't like how my additions and modifications impacted the story and would regret them. This would make me undo everything I had done, but still left me with the original paragraphs that I now didn't like the look of because it felt like something was missing.

Because of all of this, I'm trying something different. While I write, I am actively telling myself "no." Just make a note of it and come back to it later.

The only thing I have given myself permission to change are things in the outline. The outline is so broad that me reordering things there or adding an extra line isn't going to derail my writing and force a restart.

For example, I switched the subjects of Chapter 2 and 3 because it made more sense for them to go in that order. I didn't change the purpose of those two chapters. "L-Bo" was always about touring the base of operations and "Funeral" was always about a funeral.

Since the start of this new year, I have been doing a good job of posting every two weeks. I am hoping to continue this trend for the foreseeable future. Even if I don't get a chance to finish a chapter, I will still make a blog post.

That is why I posted this blog post and the unfinished Chapter 2 today. I am hoping that in the coming days I will have the completed Chapter 2 up.

The good news is that I had already made great progress on "The funeral" before I switched the order, so getting another chapter out in the next two weeks should be doable.

Should be.

Don't procrastinate, future Ryan.