50000 WORDS!

I have reached the half way mark. This usually takes years. Having a fixed deadline and someone reading my manuscript to edit it as I work makes all the difference. Might see if I can repeat this next year when I do Flotsam. Though I know an outline will make a difference there and the extra year to prepare things starting in November will help make a difference. Though in retrospect I think October-November to write it instead of November-December is useful so I can do Christmas stuff.

It seems to be coming along. A few new characters introduced. Some have been eaten (as is to be expected in a Zombie novel.) The thing that I am not entirely sure about at this point is final length. 100,000 words was my original target, but this story may merit something shorter. The problem is that most places really want 100,000 words as the minimum length. The natural flow seems to indicate 80,000 to 90,000. I think I'll compromise on 90,000 so I can add another 10,000 without as much difficulty and story disruption if the current people I'm trying to get to publish it reject it.

Taking today 'off' to brainstorm ideas for the second half.

38000 Down, 62000 to go.

The number is starting to look rather amazing for the amount of time that has passed, at least to me.

In terms of chapters, 10 and 11 are strong. I really like what I wrote. Given feedback and my perception 1-5 are also very strong. I'm a little worried about 6,7, 8 and 9. We'll see what Skip's comments are, but if this is any reflection based on the last novel (Micronation) I think this part of a story is my weak point as an author.

Some authors can't start a story or end one. Mine might be the part between the beginning and the middle. There are worse weaknesses to have, but if that is the case it lends more credence to the idea of outlining the plot on a chapter by chapter basis before I start.

Something to keep in mind for when I eventually get around to Flotsam.

30000 down. 70000 to go.

Had to get rid of 1000 words because of a scene that just didn't work. Skip is being very helpful in his edits. This wouldn't be possible or worthwhile without him helping to edit on the fly.

18000 Down, 82000 to go.

Well I've got a good solid beginning. Grenademan isn't in it that much except kind of in the background, but given how I'm using him this story, that's acceptable. I have another 7-8 thousand words of build up before I begin to tear the world apart (which given the mood I'm in at the moment should be delightfully fun) and then the final third which deals with the aftermath.

One challenge at the moment is focusing on the granularity vs montageness. Specifically, the lead time of six months is a bit much to not make an entire first novel about preparations. On the other hand, PREPARING for a zombie apocalypse is not what the story is really about. I'm only really including it because I've never really seen anyone do it before and that's kind of a good portion of what the story is about.

Its hard (in my opinion) to even start to do any meaningful preparation with any less time, but dramatically speaking its ...a lot of time to skip over in 3-4 chapters. Especially given the scope of what is going on. Well, we'll see what happens.

Easier than Shooting Wolves in a Helicopter

6000 Words down. 94000 to go.

Progress Report: On Track So Far

The first chapter is done. It is roughly 3800 words long. Since I’m doing 2000 words a day, I also sent Skip the first 200 words of the second chapter. The first part was largely about the heroes in the world that Grenademan is visiting. The second introduces our demented protagonist. We’ll see how things go. I thought it was funny, but my humor is not always universal.

I have a basic frame work down

The real problem is...that there have been an awful lot of Zombie parodies lately, and an awful lot of super hero parodies....though I admit I haven't seen a lot of Zombie Superhero Parodies.

Another problem with Frank (Frank Noble) is that, while he is comic and he is in some ways a parody....Grenademan isn't the Tick. He's not Plastic Man either. He's more complex than that. In some ways he's a very simple, elemental character, but his alter ego isn't. In fact, he's the closest to a true author Avatar character I've ever created. He's almost Micky Mouse or Super Man in some ways...he's so 'morally pure' that making a story about him is...difficult.

Some of the ideas I got involve the arc of progression of the character from insane 'parody' to genunine hero.....

But that wouldn't really be humorous. Oh it might, but the scope of the story is such that there can only be so much progress. Not to mention the fact that I really want to respect my own existing continuity, and the only place this story possibly fits is after the non existant sequel to the movie script but before he becomes sane.

That makes him a compotent but utterly insane character who, on the immediate surface anyway, has very little depth. He's more force of nature than character....like Hercules Ra or Quissence Prow in that element, but Prow had some change to him....and where Hercules Ra is an alien perspective, Grenademan is a very understandable, albiet highly warped one.

So to top it all off, the story really can't be about Grenademan, despite the fact that it largely consists of Grenademan fighting zombies. But you can't have 100,000 words of that, as fun as it might be. Stories are about their characters, and good stories are about how those characters change.

Generally speaking, Zombies don't change, and neither (at this phase) does Grenademan. So the story is really largely about all of the people caught in between.

Should be interesting.