Chug-Chug

No, that's not a drinking sound (I wish), but the sound of the little train that knew it could, still chugging along.

I wrote about 4,000 words last night in a detailed scene list, about 85 scenes, working through the first two acts, stopping just at the transition to the third act. So, that's 3/4 of the story.

Then I realized the recent story developments needed to be seeded in much sooner!

So, tonight I'll rework the scene list, a simple numbered list of short paragraphs explaining the key events in each scene. The final number will be somewhat less.

I haven't been able to get a solid outline I can live with by outlining alone. That's why I'm approaching it now from a scene list, a chance to get into the story in a story-telling-like mode, brief "telling" of each scene in sequence. This lets the story take off in a certain way that it doesn't by working only with brief outline-type notes. It's working. Many good ideas came out of it.

Hopefully it's only another day or two away, the outline I'm looking for, then I can resume the work on the prose.

By the way, all the recent advances for THE REFLECTING STONE are still very solid, and are continuing to guide this current revision of the plan for THE ISLE. I just need to rework this outline, then I think I'm ready to just write until finished with the first draft of THE ISLE.

The work goes on!

Adrian