on writing (VI)

It's been over a month since my last "writing update". Much of my writing time has become encumbered by The Quest, and though I've written (and stand by) The Quest being far more compelling, the simple fact of the matter is that every bone in my body itches to write, and I couldn't hold myself back for too long. I'm thinking it's best if I switch-hit between The Quest and my writing, exercising the right brain for a while and then giving it a break to make the left brain do most of the work. I'm nearly done with the first four (of eight) books I'm scheduled to read to tackle the first assumption--the existence of God--and when I finish the fourth, I'm going to put The Quest on pause and try and knock out Book One.

Yes, I'm still working on it. Because it's the first of a series, it's necessarily going to take much longer to compose than the others. The first book sets the pace for all the others, in the sense that it's structure will become the structure for all the others. It's the template, you could say. Much of the slowness in regards to writing Book One isn't because of how long it is (a whopping yet measly 250 pages) but because of the wrestling I've been going through regarding the structure. I've scratched the parallel story set in the future, because I think that while it worked with 36 Hours, the 2nd Edition, it would serve only to clutter the story and confuse the reader if drawn out over six books. Eliminating the parallel story pulled Book One in its first draft from around 300 pages to 200 pages, which I prefer (shorter books for a serial are always better, in my opinion), and this gives me considerable more freedom when it comes to the plot-line for the rest of the book.

Much of my concerns regarding Book One was the lack of "zombie action," to put it in simple terms. I originally sought out to try and write a realistic zombie story following the basic paradigm of disease spread. To my knowledge few books or movies do this, or do it well. But I've found that doing this through a serial may not be the best route, since the zombie spread would most likely be slow, and in order to make things go according to what could be a potential (hypothetical) zombie spread, the first hard-hitting zombie encounters wouldn't take place until the third or fourth books, and I've only got enough patience to write six. That's not a worthwhile sacrifice. I've decided to indulge my appetites and cut straight into the action: I'm taking the story from character-driven to story-driven, and I'm going to accelerate the zombie spread. This means that by the end of Book One, I'll be where I would've been at the beginning of Book Three. I'd be lying if I said I'm not excited about describing Cincinnati at the heart of a zombie outbreak.

So that's where I'm at right now in the writing process. I'm itching to have this book done, and hopefully I'll have it finished within the next couple weeks. I've made deadlines for myself and failed countless times before, so we'll see what happens.