Big Writing Day At Last!

I had a big writing day yesterday. 

I combed through Mayhem, touching up a few things before I progressed in the plot.  This is the dreaded first novel, but it had something in it that caught Donald Maass' attention enough that he asked me if I had anything else, back in the day before I knew about stewing time.  I sent him Beggar Smith, a barely-polished rough draft that I thought was all that.  Not so much it turns out.    Although Beggar has some stuff going for it, it's rough writing and has several confusing areas that desperately need tidying.  Anyway, I try to write forward, not back, but Mayhem has stuck with me and I'm working on a complete from-scratch rewrite.  

Signet got quite a few words as well.  When I was sick I hand wrote--it was too uncomfortable to sit in my kneeling chair in the chilly office and I don't have my own laptop (yet.)  I had about 2000 words written is all, which transcribed into 1500 (I edit when I transcribe) of setting up a quick little duel.  After the duel I got Mark back to his room where he got to have a bad moment with Winsome.  It's hard not to rush to the next scene in Signet.  I have lots of plans and I want to get to them and, even more, I want to discover what curve balls my brain will throw when I get there.  One reason I'm not big on outlines is because so many surprises crop up.  I guess I'd call myself a crisis jumper.  I know what the next crisis will be, I just don't know how the character will cope with it or how the bad guys will counter, which affects everything that follows.  I do have some general ideas about plot further into the novel so I'm not completely at sea, like who's the bad guy, and who's the secret bad guy, and who ends up actually being a good guy, but a worse threat than the real bad guy.  How that plot resolves will lead to the third and final (ahem, unless I decide to write another) nameless (possibly Rapier) novel in the series, where Mark will have to stand toe to toe against his idol and mentor, the wicked and irrepressible Gutter.  Yeah, I'm eager to get to that novel but there's enough going on in Signet that I'm not tempted to 'skip to the good part.'

That's an eight or so hour day (well, maybe more like twelve.  I was up pretty late last night.)  It's been a long time since I've had a full day (with interruptions for meals and a few chores) of writing.  It feels good.  I look forward to lots more full-time writing work days ahead.  I might even get something accomplished!