*Yawn* … I’ve gotta tell you, Sven. You’re a harsh taskmaster. There you are, effortlessly cranking out your showy pushups (what are you at — 10 million or so?), while I’m slogging through my 1,620th word of the night. It’s coming slower for me now that I’m really digging into the plot, and I need to stop and bone up a bit on basic police procedures. I passed my minimum goal of 1,500 words — quit looking at me like that!

So, Sven, why don’t you stand up and towel off — look your usual decorative self and flex those muscles or something — and I’ll read up on homicide investigations. (Don’t you love it when I get all forensic-y?)

Nighty-night.

Technorati Tags: Seventy Days of Sweat, book progress, murder mystery writing, writing challenge, my novel

Yesterday was kind of skimpy on the word count, but today was back up to snuff. The total for yesterday and today is 2,531 words. (I’d been hoping for 4,000, but right now with my part-time writing, around 2K seems to be my magic number.) I’m just tickled to have a cool new plot element that I’m starting to work into the background of several scenes. If it works out like I hope, it will make the reader think sympathetically about a certain character on the first read of the book; on the second, once the dead man’s secret is uncovered, it should give them chills.

I’m also tossing around different POV strategies. I want the book to be a true mystery. And it definitely won’t be one if I’m inside the killer’s head, in the first several INTENSE scenes I have already written. So I *think* I’m going to use those scenes as just background — confidence builders for me so I’ll know “what really happened” when I write the rest of the book from the protagonist’s point of view. That is, if I can do this all from just one person’s vantage point. Will that be too boring?

Or if I do use that information, I may strip out the killer’s name during the killer’s flashbacks to the death scene, so the reader is left in the dark a little longer, wondering at the killer’s identity and motive.

This is fun, plotting it all out. It’s like picking out pretty clothes when I’ve got plenty of money to buy whatever I want. So … how’s your plotting going?

Technorati Tags: Seventy Days of Sweat, book progress, murder mystery writing, writing challenge, my novel, point of view, plotting

I’m walking around today trying not to smile too deeply, walk too heavily, or wrinkle my nose at anything. Ask me why, and I’ll say:

Last night I was lazing on the sofa while hubby and younger daughter watched TV. I was on my side with my trusty laptop propped up beside me on its side. (It keeps it cooler AND it lets me view it while I’m being uber-lazy.) This has worked for me for the past two years. For some reason, my incredibly heavy 17-inch laptop chose last night to topple forward. Onto my nose.

Ow-ow-ow … I teared up like a little girl in this latest episode of my breezy elegance*. I spent the night with an ice bag on my freshly bumpy nose, thinking that I would really like to be able to blame this on the cat or anyone else but myself. This morning, makeup covered up the faint bluish tinge to that bump. Bit I’m still thinking that maybe I need to buy these glasses.

Or perhaps this hat.

*For my inspiration in all things related to breezy elegance, I’ll link to one of my favorite bloggers who explains the concept so well.

[tag]breezy elegance, nose injury[/tags]