That is all to say, that progress in the weeks afterwards this surgery may be lower than usual, but I'm hoping it won't slow me down too much.
Hot Pressed
I'm deep into the next scene on this story, where we get to meet the nobleman that our main heroine has been spying for. It feels a bit odd writing this character, as I need to give him all the necessary backstory and character attributes as if he'll be a recurring character, but he won't be. There's no place in the story to use his character a second time unless the narrative is expanded, and I have no plans to do that.
That's just the limitation of the 'short' story format, I suppose. Good practice for working on your characterizations, not so great for being able to reuse the ideas you've thought up for those characters.
Anyway, I expect I'll be able to finish this scene during the next week, which will setup the story for writing the climax, which will probably take multiple weeks to complete.
Robotic Restitution
I've finished the first editing pass on chapter nine this week, which puts me close to the half way mark on the first read through. The next chapter is just as long as chapter nine (which was a bit of a doozy in and of itself), so I expect it to be a bit tricky to get through this week, but I will persevere!
This story is sufficiently long that I've already forgotten some of the plot beats. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as I'm getting back into the sections of the story that are pretty hot. That does slow things down a little, though. :)
At any rate, nothing huge to report here at the moment, though I might have a go at getting two chapters done this week (that seems overly ambitious).
I'm still thinking about how I'm going to handle the cover art. Stock photos seem to be the thing for many erotic authors at the moment, but I don't feel like I want to go that route. I have some options in terms of my own photography, although I'm not convinced I want to go through the effort of acquiring the flower that I've used as a plot point.
At any rate, that's still some time away as I have far more to proofread, but I do need to keep thinking about it.
Story Outlines
I haven't done a writing topic for awhile, but this has been on my mind lately.
I used to be a believer in the 'write until you've finished telling a story' idea, but as time went on that changed. Yes, this is a great way to let your imagination run wild and release your inner creativity, but it's a terrible way to actually finish a story.
For one thing, you never know when you're done, and you'll be continually tempted to finish the story before its natural conclusion. You might write yourself off a cliff and need a deus ex machina to get yourself back on solid ground. You might have to restructure great chunks of the earlier story to make new plot points fit. You might get writer's block in the middle and can't figure out the ending.
These aren't problems solely exclusive to not starting with an outline, but many of them are enhanced by not having a plan.
There's also a few reasons why I'm biased towards having an outline now that I've gained more writing experience:
Many of my story ideas come to me in dreams, and I have to write them down quickly before they disappear. These usually form the bare bones of a plot outline in and of themselves.
Additionally, I find that I'm just plumb slower if I don't have one. I already spend enough time thinking up how the next scene is going to work before I write it; I don't want to have to worry about where the story is going and how it's supposed to end at the same time.
In the end, of course it's the writer's preference, but if you've never written with an outline before, I would highly recommend you give it a try.
Of course, as an author, you need to choose the right tools for the job. If your goal to write a hot flash or very short story, ditching the outline is probably the right call.
Good luck with your writing!
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