409 being the current double-spaced page count of Talassio, there on the left.
My first novelette-thing of 2014 being done for now, I was itching to get back to The Beast (which is how I now think of the trilogy) and get it going again.
A few things to do this time:
-England still, still isn’t working, as my bestest beta reader kindly pointed out, so I am outlining the whole story one more time. This does double-duty as I am also worried about a kind of mini-scene structure I had inserted between the larger acts. So a scene-by-scene evaluation and—oh, not a replot per se, more like a plot-check—seems in order.
-I will then go right into replotting Book 2, and hopefully map out at least the first third, and thus keep all the threads going without hiccup.
-There is also a major backstory hole that hit me in the wee hours one night. It’s grotesque. I don’t want to talk about it. But something has to be done.
-I had started to make what I was thinking of as a worldbuilding/character style sheet to help me keep track of little details throughout the novel (backstories, symbols, tics, local details for each of the various cities, etc.) but I began swelling out of the graph paper right away. So it seems more useful to start a kind of “Beastly Bible” that would encompass all three books. We’re talking looseleaf pages and binder tabs, folks, and how pleased am I that I never got rid of that three hole punch from my school days. I’m half-tempted to go out and find a Trapper Keeper.