Newsletter July 2024 - Reluctantly Crouched
I wanted to see if I would lose interest in the story if I overthought it before writing. Well, quite the opposite happened.
"Reluctantly crouched at the starting line
Engines pumping and thumping in time
The green light flashes, the flags go up
Churning and burning, they yearn for the cup"
The Distance by Cake
Hey everyone,
July is nearly over, and I've had a productive month. This time around, I've been doing way more plotting and planning before starting my first draft than I did for any other novel. At first, I wasn't sure if that style really suited me, because I enjoy the act of discovery through writing. But it's an experiment, and I wanted to see if I would lose interest in the story if I overthought it before writing. Well, quite the opposite happened.
Through the pre-writing process, I followed a mishmash of the Snowflake Method, and suggestions I found on writer YouTube videos from Brandon Sanderson and Abbie Emmons. In doing so, I discovered that my protagonist and antagonist actually have very similar motivating events and life goals, but they've taken very different paths to achieve those goals. Their paths intersect in a hopefully exciting and readable way, and that's going to be the story.
I used to run 5K races back before my old fencing knee injuries caught up to me. I would never run for a week before a race. By the time race day came around, I would be bouncing with energy, ready to go. I feel like that now with my writing. I still have a few details to sort out, but I'm holding myself back from starting my first draft, because I know that once I start, I'm not going to stop to figure out details. Hence the quote from the song The Distance by Cake. If you haven't heard it, you should check it out. I'm adding it to my writing playlist.
Speaking of details, I'm still figuring out what year to set the story, how the climate disaster comes about, and how the world will look after. No spoilers, but here are some interesting tools that I've been using to learn about projected sea level rise and how the US coastlines might look.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Synthesis Report Check out the "Summary for Policymakers" for a readable overview.
NASA Sea Level Projection Tool Uses the data from the above report to generate maps and sea level rise projections over time.
NOAA Sea Level Rise Viewer Uses the data to give detailed maps of the US coastline to see how the coastline will move as water rises.
Not gonna lie, this research is depressing, but climate change and its impact has been weighing on me for a while. A big reason I love my job is that I'm doing something to help understand the science behind climate and hopefully our work will be part of the solution. Writing this novel is the other way I'm helping myself work through this global challenge. Writing is therapeutic, for sure.
Back to the writing, my story is set in the real world, but with a twist (and not just the climate disaster). I want to convey that twist with enough info so the story makes sense, but I couldn't figure out how I would do it. Then I heard a podcast that talked about when you should use a prologue, and my situation fit perfectly. So I'll start my draft with a prologue that will essentially be a short story that stands on it own. It'll be a good way to get back into fiction writing after so long.
As for writing plans, I'm going to treat it a bit like National Novel Writing Month, and so I'll start August 1st, and write every day to build momentum. I may not focus on word count, and my goal is to reach the end of the story, not the end of the month, but I want to get back into the groove, and the best way is to write, write, write!
Best,
Todd
