Ok. I missed a blog post in June. That one is on me. In my defense, however, June has always been the busiest, craziest time of the year, and this year was even more insane than in previous years. We had multiple birthdays, Father’s Day, our wedding anniversary, multiple family events (including a vacation). On top of all that, work was real busy and real stressful and that took up a majority of my time. So, needless to say, I spaced the June blog post and I essentially took June off from writing. There wasn’t much wiggle room in there.
I do have some semi-good news though. I was able to get roughly 2,000 words before the June madness hit. So at least there’s a little something. I’m still working on chapter 5, and I think if I can push through and finish up this chapter this month, the next little stretch has some intense action sequences. When those story beats happen, depending on the sequence, I usually fly through the first draft.
The hardest part on writing these first few chapters has been ensuring that there is enough of a reason to grab the reader even if there isn’t always an explosion or a monster chase happening. Those sections I tend to struggle with, at least on the first draft. It’s easy for me to write sections where ‘thing go boom’, but I try to take my time on more introspective, discussion-heavy portions of the story. They are just as (if not more) important when compared with the action set pieces, and if I get that wrong it can immediately turn someone off the book.
So, all that essentially boils down to my minimum goal; to finish chapter 5 this month. If I can do that, I have a secondary goal of making some good progress into chapter 6 as well. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even get chapter 6 done entirely and have a crazy productive month. I can dream.
Until next time!