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Homestretch: Day Nine

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

edited 1:15 a.m.: word count: 3616

I finished the main scene between Theo and Stephan, although it took longer than I thought. That’s okay –it’s very, very crucial to the rest of the story. Then I got one more section in Theo’s POV done. I think I have one left, and then revisions to the one I worked on last night. I guessed at a new goal word count, but I’m very close to finishing the villain’s POV.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
101,726 / 105,000
(96.9%)

Despite finishing the main story line last night, I cannot yet say this first draft is finished, not until I write Theo’s POV scenes. After a very late start this morning (the monsters are out of school, and I still need to get Littlest Monster registered for summer school and kindergarten today), the first thing I needed to do:

Worldbuilding.

Yes, that might sound strange this late in the game, but I never knew much about Pella, Stephan’s home country. Some very interesting developments came out of this draft. To say the least, I adore it when magic happens and things suddenly make sense that I swear I made up on a whim years ago. Now, it’s crucial. It’s meaningful. There’s a reason I haven’t done a character interview for Stephan yet. I plan to do one, definitely, but there was so much I didn’t know about his home, his land, his way of life. Until I knew about these things, I could only guess at the whys of the man. Let me just say that this guy is one deep, intelligent, delicious villain, and he knows it.

What’s so ironic is that I actually reused some of my research for NSR, the Mayan fantasy. I drew a map this morning. I learned a lot about coffee plantatations, or should I say caffe plantations. A little more prep work, and then I believe I’ll be ready to write the main scene between Theo and Stephan from which all other villainous threads of this story flow. It gives me chills thinking about how it all played out before I even really knew what the hell was going to happen.

Word count to come later.

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