In spite of the incredible tennis tonight (Venus! Jelena! Roger! Andy!), I still managed to get a bit of wordage in.  That’s Chapter One all done.

Not a bad night’s work, considering I’ve neglected this story for so long.  I was letting it simmer on my mental backburner.  I know the main character of SanClare Scarlet so well, it’s easy to write him.  Sophie is someone I’m still getting to know, which makes the going a bit slower.  I like her, though.  I wrote a scene tonight where I think I found out a key thing about her.  Here’s the pivotal snippet:

When she’d finally climbed into bed sometime later, left alone by her maid and Polly and faced with her own thoughts, she had to dig her nails into her palms to keep the tears at bay. All she wanted was to fix things, but she’d already made so many mistakes. She wished more than anything that she had John’s courage and Polly’s gumption, but she was only Sophie. And that had never yet been good enough.

Tonight went much better than the whole entire weekend has gone, wordage-wise.  I’ve been off and feeling overtired and distracted, but after Walker Bros. French Toast Therapy for dinner, I think everything’s going to be all right ;)

Maybe I should figure out how to do one of those sidebar counters.  But!  Until then — Whoo-hoo! Almost 20%!  This is a rough section that’s going to need some work, so much more slow-going… 

I actually cut a lot out of this existing part and I still made some blazin’ progress.  Some of what I cut includes info that needs to get put in somewhere here very soon in a different configuration, so that might slow me down a little.

Things are going well, but we’re still pretty far away from getting everyone to Court where I can start having all kinds of Fun with Intrigue! On the journey there, however, a legend is building which will complicate matters muchly once Court is reached :)

Made not as much progress as I’d hoped today — intentions thwarted by lunch plans going awry, post-storm/weekend tourist traffic in downtown Chicago, and just… y’know… stuff.  But still.  10%!  Woot.

Yay!  I’ve hit Existing Stuff (that will need rework but is still usable) and made really good progress with bridging stuff (no slogging today!) and am very, very happy!  Next up: Chapter Four!

And now for a treat, I’m off to get ready for the Mae concert at Schubas!  *so excited!* 

That’s what it felt like today.  Getting through this bit at the beginning where everything for part one of the book gets set up is work, I tells ya–WORK!  But, yay! Six-percent!  And if tomorrow goes well, I’ll reach the big chunk of existing stuff at last!  *does little dance*

I keep smacking my own hand and scolding myself to not go back and futz with the rough spots right now.  I even put a note in telling myself to skip over to the next event and go back and fix the bridging scene later because it was being a major roadblock.  The minute I did that, I knew how to proceed and thus was able to delete the note.  As someone (sorry!) in that fantastic panel at WisCon said, you have to give yourself permission to suck [during first drafts].

I switched word counters because the other one is much more complicated to use *and* (important consideration) doesn’t look cute on my new blog.  Okay, this one isn’t cute, either, but it’s clean, and the faux shadow-on-white-background on the other counter was bugging me.

I finally figured out who my main character was for this, and I’ve started over from the beginning because Sophie-Katrine Pathescarte is a far different character from either Alice or Sarah. There will still be a race, a disaster, a secretly-mailed letter, and mayhem, but that will come a bit later and a bit differently than in the original draft.

I “found” the character and the story when this blurb popped into my head during a drive a couple of weeks ago.

Sophie-Katrine Pathescarte has a secret that could end her perfect, high-society engagement, ruin her entire family…and save the kingdom.

And for this version, I’ve made a nice start tonight:

1,646 / 90,000 (1.8%)