The Weeks in Words - 4/14/25 - 4/27/25
A False Finish, A Reset, and a Win
Output - Data
Total: 11,217 words (37 pages [7,548] + 3,669 typed)
Days of Writing: 9/14 days (.643 WrPCT)
AWD: 1,246/day
Words Added to Avalanche: 783
Ratio: 7
Longest Day: 4/23/25 - 2,826 words (8 pages [1,632] + 1,194 typed)
The Still Bleepin’ Counts Award: 4/16/25 - 101 words typed
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Output - Synthesis
Over the last two weeks, I journaled 38 pages and typed less than 4,000 words. That kind of ratio speaks to the fact that I haven’t felt as connected with the words when I type. I don’t feel as awake when I type either, and that matters a lot when you’re writing tired as I often am.
These journal-centric weeks of writing were focused on getting “Fallen Giants, Uplifted” finished—to get through Maribel and Levi’s dinner together, to get through the final scene in this long sequence I started working on back in February, before I wrote Drive Down Victory, before I wrote Baggage Claim.
And about midway through the second week, I totally thought I did finish it, even going so far as to add it to our slow-building manuscript in the Trapper Keeper.
Except I couldn’t stop thinking about the ending and that whole conversation that I’d zipped through and thought was complete. It felt like I hadn’t really accomplished anything in the 800 words I had, rather their conversation turned away every time much-needed synthesis was about to happen. It also didn’t reinforce their chemistry as characters, or offer commentary on anything that had come before.
So basically, I had a first draft. Luckily, as many’a writer knows, you can fix things that exist. I didn’t completely have bupkis, I had at least had my context-cup—it was more about what coffee and which creamer I wanted to add to this homemade latte, instead of the weak tea is was currently filled with.
Admitting this, giving name and existence to the issue at hand, I began to ask some questions while I was holed up at a coffee shop while Minna got her hair cut upstairs, questions like: what do we need to synthesize? what is the actionable center, the dramatic engine, of their conversation? What is Maribel’s problem in this scene? What is Levi’s?
I started with a from-memory list of all the prior major events in the Cup Which Runneth1 cycle. I worked backward, figuring that the things with the closest chronological proximity are at top of mind for them.
That gave us the synthesis. To find actionable ways to express this synthesis, I turned to the scene details sheet to sort out their conversation’s infrastructure.
By the time Minna was done, and certainly looking gorgeous, the issue that kept me up at night, that made me revisit the sequence almost immediately, was clear: I hadn’t taken enough consideration for Maribel’s Main Problem during the conversation, being that she’s the POV character and thereby her goals need to be in focus—yet I didn’t know what motivated her goals. And the motivation wound up being simply, “Keep Levi from knowing about my troubles.” She doesn’t want him to take it upon himself, and make some sweeping gesture that only makes her ageless appearance more public and thus hasten her looming inevitable exit.
Once I had the main problem, I could then find the conflict (“What stands in their way?”). Clearly the conflict wasn’t between Levi and Maribel—the whole point of this conversation is to show how well they get along—but there needed to be something that stood in her way.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there was a character in this cycle who could blow the whole thing open, who was a Chekov Gun we’d been waiting for the opportune time to pull the trigger on: Mrs. Abigail Benjamin, the haughty, corpulent woman who was sold callous cream for her complexion when she pressed Maribel about how she stays so exactly the same across the months. If there’s one woman who could force the beans to spill all over Levi, it would be her.
All of this was missing from the first draft, and I knew I needed to start all the way over with the scene—it would allow for her interruption to happen organically, rather than trying to shoehorn it into the scene as it exists. Plus, it felt too broken to start any other way. I sat down with my journal, and the printed pages of the scene’s first draft propped up, then proceeded to spend Sunday finessing and fixing and figuring my way through it.
It still needed to be typed out, which means the ratio will be a little more in line with normal next week.
I’ve got a short story and a video coming your way soon, so be on the look out for them!
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Input - Synthesis
I got halfway done with the House of the Spirits. The further I get into, the more I’m enjoying it. She layers the characters and the situations one on top of the other, using actions and ominous statements to spread the web of the story across a wide swath of time.
I feel like I’m learning something, but I can’t quite figure out what that is yet.
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Input - Data
Book: <The House of the Spirits> by Isabel Allende
Starting Page: 146
Ending Page: 257
Days Read: 9/14 (.643 rPCT)
Pages Read: 111
Pages Per Day: 12.3
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-30-
Wherein Levi’s city flourishes, things go south for Maribel, and the floodwaters rise—the rise, the climax, and the denouement of the storyline
Good job recognizing what you need instead of being too many pages done.