The Exposition Conundrum

Writing update.

Writing update.

I am at 51,785 words in the manuscript.

That doesn't sound quite right.

I didn't record Fridays, but let's use that number because that's what I have.

I am moving right along.

I realized looking back at my schedule of writing, and that's why the tracking in my spreadsheet is really helpful, that every week I write six days a week.

I take off generally Saturdays unless the schedule needs me to take off a different day.

And as it turns out, every fourth week I need two days off.

I end up just calling an audible and either probably taking off that Sunday also, if I'm just feeling a little tired and a little bit frayed.

And that's interesting because I noticed that pattern for the first time.

So I like the tracking and I like knowing that I probably need six days off per month of writing, especially when I'm in this revision stage and everything is really, um, creatively taxing more so than first drafts.

I mean, first drafts, I don't like at all, but I can just sort of vomit them out the way my college screenwriting professor, Harley Greenwald, used to say, vomit out the draft.

I can vomit out a first draft and not feel emotionally and creatively depleted afterwards, but revising some of the stuff is just taxing.

So So six days off a month, that will help me in future planning, having those kind of hard numbers.

I know that I probably do six to seven, but seven days off a month is a whole week.

That sounds like a lot.

And I guess it is, but if you know that that's what you need, then you can say, okay, I'm going to plan to write 21 days a month.

And if I get more, that's great.

Hopefully I won't get any less than that, because that's probably a clue that something big is wrong.

I also got a bit stuck at the end of the week with a scene that's mostly exposition.

So there is this, this is the 1920s fantasy heist story that I'm writing.

And sometimes you just need people to get some information.

Someone has to tell them some information.

In this case, They're finding a document and they're reading this information.