Working on Over Burning Cities this morning, creating files for all of the outlined chapters that are yet to be done, so I can get a sense of pacing. I’ve got them looking like this: Chapter 10 (RB).doc; Chapter 11 (Roh).doc; Chapter 12 (L).doc — The letters in parentheses tell me which POV character that chapter should be written from, as per my outline.
Because I’ve got five different POVs and only two sets of two of them intersect – and then only about halfway through – I can write POV chapters as one long story or narrative until the point where events in POVs merge, then I have to write chapter-by-chapter in order again (I tend to have to work chronologically. Very rarely do I write chapters out of order that are meant to intersect – largely because no matter how good my outline is, I go all organic and weird shit happens and characters pop up that ain’t in the outline). So I’m writing up another Zezili chapter, and I wanted to have file markers in my folder to use as a bench marker as to how well I’m doing with my pacing (pacing was one of my biggest problems with book one).
So, as Chapter Title markers in each file, I put the character’s name – and I was reminded of George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire, in which each of his chapter titles were character names. Damn, such great shorthand.
And it reminded me to check and see if his latest book is done.
It’s not. But he’s got a rant up about the election.
Ha. I love all us hippies.
