It’s been far too long since I’ve made one of these posts, but when one hasn’t worked on one’s work-in-progress, there’s no point in making a post to announce that you’ve accomplished nothing.

Thankfully, I’ve accomplished more in the past few days than I did in the prior two months.  It’s flowing again.  I’m finally back.

This year, NaNoWriMo has been a very different experience for me.  As it turns out, this was exactly the motivation I needed to get back into the swing of things.  Once again, I find my work-in-progress consuming my thoughts.  I live each day to get off work, get home, and fire up my computer.  I find it harder to stop writing than to start.  I love every single second of this.  I never want it to end.

A lot has happened over the past week.  That being said, here’s what’s been happening with my treasured work-in-progress:

The Pioneer

What a difference a week makes.

To say that my attempt to jump-start things by rewriting the opening chapters of phase 3 worked would be a grievous understatement.  Since November 1st, I’ve written 13,681 words, with nearly 10,000 of those coming over the past three days.  As of tonight, for the first time in months I managed to write a complete chapter in one night, which means I’m back to the output I’d seen at the height of my work this past summer.  And, for the first time since I began participating in NaNoWriMo, as of now I’m projected to hit 50,000 words before November 30.

As for what’s been happening in the story itself, strange as it sounds it all started in a garden.

As I’ve said, when I began writing phase 3 just prior to Pitch Wars, I hated it.  It felt so canned, so contrived, so…expected.  Perhaps, in retrospect, I was preoccupied with the Pitch Wars process: my first foray into the world of publishing.  Regardless, I quickly grew discouraged, and that discouragement played no small part in my decision to take a partial hiatus during the Pitch Wars process.

I’ll admit, part of me was nervous about resuming work on The Pioneer.  Part of me wanted to try writing something else, anything else.  Luckily, however, I pushed through the trepidation, and now here I am.

When I first began looking over what I’d written of phase 3, I was surprised to find I hated it even more on November 1 than I had when I wrote it several months ago.  I needed to get back to what this story was really about, and as such, I decided to move things around a bit.  The more I thought about it, the first chapter of phase 3 I had a clear vision of was one I’d intended to be the third or fourth: a chapter taking place in the Susan Constant‘s agricultural labs, in which the expedition’s agricultural expert, Dana Vilsack, would discuss the colony’s initial agricultural plan with Randall Holmes.  I liked it, I knew it, and I was sure it would be good.  So, I decided to simply skip past Holmes’s return to the Susan Constant, and start things off in the seed bank.

From there, everything began falling into place.  New conflicts emerged.  New characters were introduced more organically.  The plot began to come together and flow once more, and it wasn’t long before I could again see a clear path to my ultimate goal.

Though I feel good about the chapter I laid down tonight, last night’s work was one of my best chapters so far.  It was a pivotal chapter, one I’d been half-anticipating, half-dreading since the first line of the story: Planetfall.  In the chapter, the colony finally begins in earnest, as the Susan Constant disassembles one of its gravity wheels, dropping the components to the surface to become the first major structures of the fledgling colony.  It was a crucial point in the story: the point at which the story ceases to be about a ship in orbit, and becomes a story about pioneers taming an alien wilderness.

I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.  It all came together perfectly, including a touching romantic moment between Holmes and Stark at the end.  I also decided, this time around, to omit a tiny quirk I’d mentioned in my abortive first attempt at the chapter: the date.  The first structures of the settlement land on Phecda IX on Thursday, November 26, 2122.

Thanksgiving Day.

Ultimately, I decided not to belabor the point, or even mention it at all.  Instead, I’m content to leave it as a little Easter egg for any eventual reader curious enough to pull out a very long calendar.

At this point, I again have a firm idea of where everything is headed.  I know what needs to happen in coming chapters, how things will develop.  And though I’m not completely sure exactly when those things will happen, or exactly how to get there, I’m confident that I’ll figure it out.  Each new chapter brings those ahead into sharper focus, all leading to the eventual climax at the end of phase 3.

I can’t wait to see what lies ahead. – MK