Decisions Made

Continuing on from yesterday's post, I have decided to continue writing Eryk's story as I have a more well rounded ideas for him than I do some of the other characters.  I finished chapter 7 and so for it is the longest.  I am probably going to finish off his storyline before write anything else for the others characters.  I also have a deilema when it comes to the character of Myra.  I used her in the prolouge and then decided I liked her and wanted to use her as a main character.  I am now thinking that she may be a one off character for the purpose of the prolouge only.   This leaves me with a hole to fill as now I need to create another character and populate their story.  I kinda hope that an interesting scenerio for Myra pops into my head soon or else she will be relegated to a prologue character only.   I will give it another week, the important thing is that I keep writing and the ideas will come.

During the course of my writing, I like to read writing book.  I have read a few in the past year and they have really taught me a lot.  (Though you will never learn as much from those books as you will from just reading novels and studying them.)  I started with the basics. The Elements of Style.  It was helpful and at only 99 pages it took me a while to get through as the content is quite dry.  However, anyone who aspires to write anything should read it.  I don't understand why we didn't study it in high school.  Anyways.  Another writing book I read was On Writing by Stephen King. This was half memoir and half instruction manual.  So far to date, it has been the most helpful.  Further, I read On Writing Well by William Zinsser.  It was helpful for techniques, but focused more on writing non ficiton articles and memoirs which wasn't really what I was looking for, but was still an insightful read.  Currently, I am readin Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell.  This book as so far been very helpful and I have incorporated many of the techniques I learned in the first 100 pages into my current writing.

So I have finished 7 chapters in less than 2 weeks.  I believe that isn't too shabby considering I have a full time job.  I would like to finish perhaps another 2 to 3 chapters this week and bring it up to an even 10 (Including the Prologue).  I appear to be on schedule and I hope that I can stick to it.