Day 29: Waffling over combining volumes or not

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Lately I’ve been frustrated that even when I go to bed early, I often can’t get to sleep right away and end up tossing and turning for an hour or two. Then I get up later, which cuts into my writing time. I really don’t know how to fix this. I had thought going to bed earlier would help me to get up earlier, but that’s turning out not to be the case.

Today I’m continuing work on Snowflake step 6 (expanded synopsis) on volume 10. It’s looking like it’s a short volume, just like how volume 9 was short, so I’m going to spend time today trying to combine volumes 9 and 10 together and seeing how they are.

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I finished Snowflake step 6 for the combined volume 9/10, which is now volume 9. I’m worried that volume 9 will be really long, just like volume 8 (which is what used to be volumes 8 and 9 combined).

What’s also worrying me is that volume 10 (the last volume) will be much shorter than any of the other volumes. I’ll have to think about if there’s anything in volume 9 that I can shunt to volume 10 to shorten volume 9 and beef up volume 10. I think I will continue to work on Snowflake step 6 for my new volume 9 to see how I can adjust it.

***

I didn’t quite like the new combined volume 9, so I actually split it up and revised the plot for the two volumes (9a and 9b), but then didn’t like that so I recombined it into volume 9 and revised the plot a bit more again. I guess I really can’t just write short novels, my brain doesn’t seem to work that way.

Anyway, I spent a lot of time waffling and trying out volume 9 as one volume and as two volumes, and I still haven’t finished the spiritual and romantic arcs for this new volume 9, they’re only half-way done.

***

I got some progress on the spiritual and romantic arcs for volume 9, but they’re still not quite done yet.

However, it’s nice to see I got in more writing time today! I even took an hour to read during lunch!

Time spent writing: 6 hours, 48 minutes
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 45 minutes

My takeaway for today: I need to figure out how to get up earlier. It shouldn’t be this hard!

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