‘IMPASSE DAY’ A Novel. The Story So Far …

Sisyphus
(Not book cover, just Sisyphus rocking out)

Phew. Another phase in ‘Impasse Day’ complete – and it’s currently 586 pages long in 6″ by 9″ trim.

All the trivial notes have been addressed. I call the in-book notes ‘slashnotes’, because I begin them with a backslash, ‘\’. It’s the only character that never naturally appears in an ODT document, and so I can search for it easily with OpenOffice (currently LibreOffice) or other tools.

Thing is, of course, LibreOffice et al have their own Comment systems, which I am starting to use. It’s just I’ve been a software designer tooooo long to trust anybody’s sh… stuff.

There are more ‘slashnotes’ to go, but now they are all plot-adjustments and scene fixups, not just minor forgotten details and things that needed smoothing.

I tell thee –

The next novel I am planning out down to the beat! This one I planned via lots and lots of notes, both typed and voice, all of which I had to consolidate. I’m still consolidating them, and that process will go on right to the end when – no doubt – I throw half of them away!

In fact, for the next one I’m adopting Vince Gilligan’s screen-writing team’s approach, and one I’ve seen other writers discuss – lots of individual plot-points, each written on a lined card and pinned to a wall so they can be easily moved around.

Every plot point!