Sunday, March 13, 2011

Grant year, week ten: writing and researching

Mostly writing. I had one-and-a-half 'writing days' this week, and I was meant to have one on Monday, so I was going to see if I could get to 60,000 words. It would have been the first time I'd written 10k in a week since before kids, when I was writing '4157'.

But because of the quake in Japan I've got to shift my writing day to Wednesday, so that's not going to happen. However, I have done 57,000 words so I'm happy with that. I might aim for 65k by the end of the week. What I definitely want to do is stay ahead on word count. So, regardless of how much I write per week, still aim for 5k each week, as a minimum.

Into the second act, I'm starting to face some hard decisions. And I'm starting to realise that there are things that don't work, that will affect the structure, that need to be changed. I'm not stressing because I can see the changes that need to be made. I have answers!

There are some other things that I've yet to decide on. For example, the order that the tattoos appear. At the moment, it's kinda chronological, which makes sense. But maybe it would make more sense for them to appear in reverse chronological order ('Memento'-style). But I can't really make those decisions until I've written the whole book, given it a little rest, then had another look at it.

Other things I'm starting to wonder about is the pros and cons of using real people in a fictional story. Not the main characters, of course, but the backdrop. Skin Deep has a political sub-plot, which involves the rise of a Labor star, following a long period of conservative rule. So, I can make up history, or I can make up people. I can make up a fictional conservative PM, or I can imagine a world where Peter Costello succeeded from John Howard and went on to win the 2007 election. But, I'm not trying to write alternative history! And if the book sells into the US and the UK, which I obviously hope it does, then the knowledge of local politics won't really matter.

The research this week has been mostly online, looking into the 2006 Black Hawk crash off Fiji, in which two men died. Have also been reviewing a couple of books I own about the SAS, and also reading a book I bought recently, about outlaw motorcycle gangs in Australia.

Have also taken some photos down the Gold Coast (see previous entry on that).

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