Well the second round of the 70 Days of Sweat Challenge is about to begin on October 15th. I opted not to sign up for the last round and wound up following it anyway, so I decided that I would really own the challenge this time. It’s the perfect way to kick off work on my new book. Rather than working on Flash Point, which was the first story idea that occurred to me upon completion of House of Cards, I’m opting to go with a more recent idea, Til Death Do Us Part, which will ultimately be in the vicinity of 95-100k. I’ll be aiming for 7500 words a week, which will work out to about 1k a day plus butt-busting on weekends. The challenge is actually 93 days, as it bridges Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, and the coordinators were kind enough to give us 23 days to deal with inevitable family and other commitments. I’ve been doing some general fleshing out of my concept for TDDUP, but there’s more to be completed between now and the 15th. I’d like to have an overall action points outline completed, which means me figuring out more about the dead woman that’s uncovered in the opening scene. In typical me-fashion, I’ve already plotted the psychology of the bad guy–but I still don’t know who he is! I’ve figured out the general personalities and professions of the hero and heroine and how they are going to get thrown together. I’ve thought up some subplots. I just need to storyboard and put it all together. I’m hoping to have a few thousand words on it before the challenge begins, just so that I’m comfortable with my characters when the starting pistol fires.
In other news, Snippers, I will return visits later this weekend, as I’m off to an out of town wedding today.
Pot and I have also decided to start a spinoff of Friday Snippets that’s more geared toward the romance genre. We’ve met some great people on F.S., but often feel out of our depth commenting on genres we’re not very familiar with. Judging from the response to my blurb from two weeks ago, I think some of you probably feel the same about romance! So more on that later next week when we begin!
Yesterday had no writing progress to report. Too involved in personal drama that has no place here. Hope to get back to it on Sunday.