As I work to complete my first novel in nearly two years, I've reached a major milestone - Act Two is finished! Fight Or Flight is the prequel to Homecoming, and it follows the story of the near mythological figure at the center of Homecoming's story, David Morton.
***SPOILER ALERT***
Okay, now that you know I plan to reveal a few things, you've either chosen to keep reading or stop. If you've stopped, you won't read this line, so I'm not really sure why I'm writing it. Anyway...
I don't know that I consider this a true spoiler, since those who read Homecoming, which will be out first, will know in advance the general gist of Fight or Flight. By the end of Act One, David Morton had built up a global resistance network to fight off an alien invasion. Act Two takes place immediately following, and it tells of just how big a failure that global resistance was.
This was the act I've had in mind since I conceived the book in the first place. David Morton, after drawing down an enemy counterattack that nearly wiped out what was left of humanity, has concluded that trying to drive the enemy from our world is futile - we're outnumbered about 300-1 by a technologically superior foe - and that escape to another world is our only alternative. Act Two deals with how he gets from A to B, along with the ethical questions presented by the escape plan. After all, not everyone can go, so who gets left behind?
This act took off when I got nine straight days to write all day long. That resulted in an average of over 5,000 words a day. Given what I already had, that meant that I could complete Act Two pretty quickly.
Sometimes it was quite the grind. Writing 5,000 words a day presents its own challenges, chief among them being outrunning my outline. I did that several times, and although I knew where I was going, I hadn't written it out, so I had to keep going back to add key elements. This can make the text choppy, and I don't recommend it. However, I got by for now, mostly because I've had the story in my head for over two years now and I know it by heart.
Act Three now awaits. I'm hoping to have the entire novel complete by Labor Day so that I can take some time off - a week or so - before starting my next novel. It all makes you think - we have to love what we do since no one would put himself through this if he didn't.
***SPOILER ALERT***
Okay, now that you know I plan to reveal a few things, you've either chosen to keep reading or stop. If you've stopped, you won't read this line, so I'm not really sure why I'm writing it. Anyway...
I don't know that I consider this a true spoiler, since those who read Homecoming, which will be out first, will know in advance the general gist of Fight or Flight. By the end of Act One, David Morton had built up a global resistance network to fight off an alien invasion. Act Two takes place immediately following, and it tells of just how big a failure that global resistance was.
This was the act I've had in mind since I conceived the book in the first place. David Morton, after drawing down an enemy counterattack that nearly wiped out what was left of humanity, has concluded that trying to drive the enemy from our world is futile - we're outnumbered about 300-1 by a technologically superior foe - and that escape to another world is our only alternative. Act Two deals with how he gets from A to B, along with the ethical questions presented by the escape plan. After all, not everyone can go, so who gets left behind?
This act took off when I got nine straight days to write all day long. That resulted in an average of over 5,000 words a day. Given what I already had, that meant that I could complete Act Two pretty quickly.
Sometimes it was quite the grind. Writing 5,000 words a day presents its own challenges, chief among them being outrunning my outline. I did that several times, and although I knew where I was going, I hadn't written it out, so I had to keep going back to add key elements. This can make the text choppy, and I don't recommend it. However, I got by for now, mostly because I've had the story in my head for over two years now and I know it by heart.
Act Three now awaits. I'm hoping to have the entire novel complete by Labor Day so that I can take some time off - a week or so - before starting my next novel. It all makes you think - we have to love what we do since no one would put himself through this if he didn't.
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