The Weeks in Words - 3/31/25 - 4/13/25
Two Weeks of Getting Forward
Output - Data
Total: 11,715 words (21 pages & 36 words [4,320] + 7,395 typed)
Days of Writing: 10/14 days (xxx WrPCT)
AWD: 1,172/day
Words Added to Avalanche: 1,947
Ratio: 17
Longest Day: 4/6/25 - 2,933 words (4 pages [816] + 2,117 typed)
The Still Bleepin’ Counts Award: 4/10/25 - 36 words
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Output - Synthesis
After we finished reading through what we’ve got so far of Levi and Maribel, I felt in tune with the characters and the plot enough to continue with “Fallen Giants, Uplifted,” the next sequence in Avalanche.
This is when Levi sees the first trees fall for timber while he’s giving a sermon. Dismayed, he retreats to his rectory, leaving the congregation stunned and seeking. Williams, after a gentle ribbing from his love interest, tries to allay the situation by going to talk to Levi.
This is where I felt myself halted the first time, before I took my break to work on spontaneous works. There is a POV shift, into Williams’ umwelt, but I felt like I didn’t know enough—rather, I hadn’t solidified enough my understanding of Joseph Williams, a character who has changed a great deal from the huckster he was when I first wrote him. This liquefaction of his character meant I had to go back to the beginning, back before the start of the book to where Williams and the New Judah Society meet at the train depot in San Francisco. I knew that, in order to echo these first impressions, I needed to write these first impressions.
I put to use my practice of spontaneity and kinda free-flowed through a quick draft of this initial meeting. I wrote it from Williams’ perspective as well to help me find his voice a bit better.
It was clear I was ready once I finished that exercise. I sat down and wrote out their conversation and how Williams is able to realize far more organically what’s actually bothering Levi—because it ain’t the trees, it’s Maribel: how she’s been busy and they haven’t gotten any real time together, how their lives had bifurcated to a point acquaintanceship. Williams encourages Levi to go to her as a friend, as he knows full well the advantages of playing the long game. He tells him that she will have the time for him. With his will revitalized, Levi gives a few closing words to his congregation then hurries off to find her.
Except he doesn’t know where to find her. Levi eventually finds his way to the banks of the Plume River where he literally trips, falls, and lands in her purview.
The hardest thing with writing this sequence has been the shifting POV of the 3rd Person Limited voice. Gaining control of POV is something I’ve worked my ass off to get right, because so often the details I want to add are outside of the voice’s periphery. There is also power in that.
Sometimes the most interesting angle is also the most limited. I think of an earlier scene involving Maribel and Carys that was most interesting from the minor character’s perspective—Carys knows way less, and thus becomes a simulacrum of the reader, with discovery in every step.
In this case, it was more about the fact that it needed to organically shift throughout the sequence—something I’ve never really tried to do intentionally—hell, I’m still fairly new to even understanding POV. So having it shift from Levi to Williams then back to Levi and on to Maribel was something that was easily holding me back from writing the sequence, was something that required me to step back from the idea so that I could see the connective tissue between the scenes within the sequence.
So, renewed and refreshed by the spring cleaning we did to close out these weeks, I will approach this final chunk of the sequence with zeal and joy. This sequence is meant to remember why we’re supposed to care about these characters’ relationship, and it will also serve as a reminder for myself.
Input - Synthesis
I doubled down and put all my focus on The House of the Spirits. I was pissed off and frustrated that I’d technically started this book two months ago but had only read 50 pages. I was distracted by matrimony, true, but I was also swimming around in too many ponds trying to find my footing. And to find your footing, you gotta put your foot down.
I returned everything I’d checked out from the library, put away A Swim in the Pond in the Rain, sat down on the couch, and set about to finding out which spirits exactly are in this house.
I think I like it so far. The writing style is super expository, but at least the facts and details are interesting. It’s not one of those books that’s chock full of pithy insights about life, but I definitely think it’s starting to work on a preternatural level, where it’s building and building and building until at a certain point we’ll be so high up that we see the entirety of the stars and the world beneath us.
But I’ve gotta plough, and I’ve gotta slog—not because the writing’s bad, but because it really feels weighed down by its own world, as if all the facts and details are also an anchor dragging along the sea bed.
But we’ll see. The plot is compelling my interest. I’m also just determined as eff to finish a novel because, as Staind once said, “It’s been awhile…”
Input - Data
Book: The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
Starting Page: 51
Ending Page: 146
Pages Read: 95
8/14 days (.571 rPCT)
APD: 11.9 pages/day
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