The Writing of the Evinrude and Eulalie Sequel has Begun
The title speaks for itself. Word count is 941, so far. My goal is to finish sometime this year; depending on when, I may start another one. That depends on how this goes.
My Writing Process
I know there’s generally a divide among writers about writing styles, sometimes referred to as the “pantser” vs. “plotter” approach. I think I recall a Twitter user once (this was before Elon) putting it like this: Pantsing is like C.S. Lewis writing the Chronicles of Narnia. (“Hey, here’s a picture of a faun carrying parcels in a snowy wood! Oh, there’s a lamp-post! Look, here’s beavers! What next? Santa Claus! A lion!”) Etc. I simplify but you get the gist. I love Narnia, I really do. But pantsing is less about an ordered and sequenced plotline and more about following the muse of creation wherever it goes. If that muse leads you to throw in Santa Claus, you throw in Santa Claus.
Plotters start with an outline and work through that; Tolkien might be one example (you’ve got a fully developed world with multiple working languages), but also there’s J.K. Rowling. She had a hand-made spreadsheet for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; you can see a picture here. That’s intense.
As far as my style goes, I’m definitely a pantser. The only time I ever made a diagram was for a storyline of my Wordpress blog serial The Catrina Chronicles which involved time travel, and that was only because I was having difficulty working out who was when and where. I start from a picture or an idea, and then follow that out and see where it takes me. I also throw math in (horrors!). I find a 50,000 end wordcount makes for a decent goal, so I take that, subtract the words I’ve already done, and divide that by the number of days left in the year. That usually gives me a reasonably enough daily wordcount to meet while tending to other matters (such as, y’know, my family, my day job, life, the universe, and everything).
This particularly work hasn’t been titled yet; suggestions are, of course, welcome. So far I’m calling it Evinrude and Eulalie Sequel as a placeholder. Plotwise, not to spoil things for any of you who read The Ballad of Evinrude and Eulalie, but there’s two plotlines I’m working with at the moment. One is the attack of Grendel’s cousin on Loventry; the other is the ex-king Philip of House Shirley trying to take revenge on the people who overthrew him.
Also, this brings me to a fun bit. I’ll be shaking up the schedule a bit; beside posting general thoughts and all, I’ll be adding to the general writing update a paywalled section where I discuss the progress of the sequel. Those of you who decide, with my gratitude, to become paid subscribers, will get to read that part, which will have an excerpt of what I’m working on, as well as the closing thought of that day’s post. Speaking of which…
Closing Time
I’ve started the Bourne film series, which I hadn’t seen before. I just finished the first one in the series, The Bourne Identity. Watching this as a parent, let me tell you, I got really anxious when Bourne and his lady friend were in that one house and the guy showed up with his two small kids and a dog. I’m here thinking, oh my goodness, Bourne just MacGuyver- assassined himself halfway across Europe, tore up an Embassy, killed a guy with a pen for heaven’s sakes, he’s being pursued by people just as dangerous as he is, and you’re letting him around children?
Frankly, it’s at this point I was grateful for the website that lets you look in advance to see if the dog dies. (I didn’t…think that they would let the kids die. Spoiler: they didn’t. The dog, not so much. Very sad.)