Short daily updates during November 2024, documenting the process for the outline for Book 3

Day 24 to 27

Word Count: 50 (Total: 10,700)

I wanted to call it quits too many times to count in the last few days, finding new excuses every day. The challenge has already achieved its primary purpose—helping me finalise the plot lines in Book 2. There’s too much going on: a day job project nearing the finishing line and screaming for attention; overseas visitors; and the revisions on The House. Something has to give. My mind keeps wandering, wanting to play with shiny new toys—like playing with the idea of creating an audio book for the Fragments using new text-to-speech apps.

But when I open the outline in Scrivener to leave notes and instructions for picking this up again next year, I find myself plotting and tightening and pulling loose ends into something resembling a structure…

So, no rest for the wicked!

Day 22 and 23

Word Count: 300 (Total: 10,650)

Still working through the bits and pieces I have written so far, moving plot lines into causal chains. I am deleting almost as many words as I am adding, but I would be happy with a 12k usable outline at the end of November! Or #Novelmeber

Day 21, Week 2 Recap

Word Count: 200 (Total: 10,350)

I’m reviewing and structuring the outline to get my rambling notes into a useful and usable shape in Scrivener. This includes:

• Splitting content into thematic and structural plot beats—one file per beat
• Revising the synopsis titles and intros for each beat
• Deleting double entries
• Separating out the side plots and interludes (I’ll keep these in separate folders until the final developmental edits)

Not the most exciting part of the process, but it has kickstarted all kinds of new ideas.

Day 19 and 20

Word Count: 0 (Total: 10,050)

Break and reset. We’re almost at the three-quarter mark, and I took time off writing to rethink what I expect the outcome of this challenge to look like.

amwriting #NaNoWriMo2024 #writingcommunity #WritersLife #WritingBreak #amplotting

Day 18

Word Count: 450 (Total: 10,050)

Magic happens in the moment when you’ve decided to call it a day—and then don’t. 
It happens when you hate it, but you shut up and write anyway. 
Today, that kind of magic happened.

Just in case you needed to hear it.

#ShutUpAndWrite #AmWriting #AmPlotting #Novelmeber #NaNoWriMo #WritingMagic

Day 16 and 17

Word Count: 250 (Total: 9,600)

Numbers are all I have left to spare today.

Good night, peeps.

Day 15

Word Count: 250 (Total: 9,350)

I’ve been refining ideas around locations—The Lost Library might be a bit cliché, but it’s very tempting—and ideas for some secondary characters that Tayl and Eass encounter on their quest. Not so beneficial for word counts, but I’m softly tapping the keys, and that’s really all there is to it.

I started to document the progress on the revisions for Book 2 in another post… just in case…

Day 14 – Week 2 Recap

Word Count: 300 (Total: 9,100)

More work on locations today. My structures naturally fall into an early text-based video game pattern. I played quite a bit as a teenager in the late ’80s, and I wrote Flash ActionScript games in my early twenties. Both influenced how I see stories unfold. After the more political focus of Book 2, Book 3 picks up the more fantastical motifs of Book 1.

On a personal note: Oh skies, do I feel shitty. My man has Covid—we were both Covid-free until Wednesday—and I’m not even sick (as in, I haven’t tested positive) but I can feel my immune system going wild.

Ah well… Onwards and upwards!

#amwriting #Novelmeber #NaNoWri #writingcommunity #WIP #GameWriting #RetroGaming #WritersLife

Day 13

Word Count: 500 (Total: 8,800)

The plot unfolds in unexpected ways. This will be a strange tale indeed—the strangest in the series. I’m looking at everything through the lens of my base themes—fragmented realities, identity, dislocation, and the idea of One—seeing how location, objects, and characters fit into the bigger picture. Something I haven’t done since the earliest drafts of Book 1, and at that time, I wasn’t even aware I was doing it.

Interesting times.
(And I don’t mean it as a threat…)

Good night and good luck!

Day 12

Word Count: 800 (Total: 8,300)

The outline for Book 3 revealed a new twist for Book 2…

One more character decides to remain at the House, allowing me to have a view into the dark side.
(Not that there is a dark side.)

This was a good day.
(In case I need to be reminded later.)

Good night and good luck!

#amwriting #NaNoWriMo2024 #WIP #PlotTwist #WritingProgress #amoutlining

Day 11

Word Count: 300 (Total: 7,500)

I remember that slump around days 11 to 13 from my previous 30-day challenges, and here I am again. It would be so easy to just call it quits and get on with life. It would be reasonable, advisable, even the right thing to do in the current context…

But nope. Still here, still hitting the keys.

Hope you are too!

Day 10

Word Count: 1,050 (Total: 7,200)

My Google Docs file has found a new home in Scrivener, now neatly sorted into parts, chapters, and scenes. The outline is growing—I’ve been focusing on the beginning of the middle section—and I’m happy with where things stand!

The revisions for Book 2 are coming along nicely as well… I’m thinking of starting another post series with daily updates leading up to publication. While I don’t get more than a trickle of traffic, it’s more like a conversation with myself—a reminder that even when progress feels slow, something is happening every day. It’s important to celebrate those little wins!

Day 9

Word Count: -50 (Total: 6,150)

It was a bad day for word count but a good day for organisation. After a week of fiddling with the new version of Google Docs, I finally repented and returned to Scrivener. I then spent hours breaking up the document into my customised version of Scrivener’s novel format template. Then I invested a few more hours in reviewing the outline and organising my ideas into potential chapters and scenes, transforming most of my convoluted ramblings into something more structured.

Hanging in there! 

Day 8

Word Count: 450 (Total: 6,200)

Today was slow going for the NaNoRebel challenge. I poured all my energy into the last copy edits to publish the first sample chapter of Book 2 and had barely 400 words left in me for the outline of Book 3. 

Still, small progress is progress as well! 

Week 1—Recap

One week into the 30-day challenge, I’ve put 5,750 words on paper. The pressure is building—my brain is mush to be honest.

The good news? The work I’ve done on the outline for Book 3 has helped me tighten some loose ends in Book 2. I published the first preview chapter of Book 2 today! I’m thrilled to share “The House, Prologue 1—A Visitation” with you.

Let’s see what the next few days bring!

Day 7

Word Count: 1200 (Total: 5,750)

Today’s sprint was strange. I wrote bits and pieces and still managed to add 1,200 words to the outline for Book 3—the highest daily count so far. Only, I don’t feel I accomplished anything, maybe because I finished another round of revisions on Book 2 earlier today, and my mind wanted to keep going with the revisions rather than switch to the outline of Book 3.

The plan for tomorrow: take a step back, review what I have accomplished in week one, and organise the pieces better.

Good night for today.

#NaNo #NaNoWriMo #NaNoRebel2024 #AmWriting #WritingLife #RevisionProcess #WritingCommunity

Day 6

Word Count: 550 (Total: 4,550)

I didn’t make my personal NaNo target today but still—500 words, yay!

Today’s focus was the first new location: the Shadow Theatre. I spent time exploring both the local cast and mapping out the first plot beats. The words weren’t exactly spilling out onto the page, so I’ll have another look tomorrow. 

Getting excited about a location or scene can mean one of two things: either you’ve wandered off the path and into the woods, or you’re onto something special. Tomorrow’s task: review how the Shadow Theatre fits into those two categories.

Happy writing, and good luck with your WIP! 

Day 5

Word Count: 800* (Total: 4,000)

I might base the middle of Book 3 on a similar narrative structure to Book 1: a treasure hunt across seven locations, with shifting goals and motivations. This structure worked well before because it’s fun and easy to turn expectations on their head and surprise the reader throughout the journey.

For locations, I might return to some favourites from Books 1 and 2—Lakeside, The Ice, The Stacks, The Chamber in the Wall—and finally reveal the Half House in all its glory. Though knowing how drafts go, this could all change tomorrow.

*) Very tired today. I kept an eye on the word counter and just kept typing until it hit 800. But here’s the thing about keeping your fingers moving across the keyboard—magic might happen. Or you feed the wastepaper basket. What matters is: something is happening. 

#NaNoRebel2024 #AmWriting #WritingLife #WritersLife #FirstDraft #CreativeProcess

Day 4

Word count: 800* (Total 3200)

Today’s sprint focused on where I want each character to be emotionally and physically at the end of Book 3. The good news? I now have a rough idea about the beginning and the end of Book 3. 

Today’s lesson learned: The Scrivener files for Book 2 are a mess. Not  the manuscripts themselves, but the different versions I abandoned after large developmental changes. It took forever to find the file with the reverse outlines and character arcs I wrote when I got stuck earlier this year. Mental note: Tomorrow, I’ll  declutter my digital files—or at least one folder.

Something else I’ve discovered (and that’s th big one): I have never really understood the power of loose outlines before, and I am loving the process. It feels like I’m having a conversation with myself about the book. I’m not restricting myself in any shape or form—I can jump between character arcs, plot beats, and even add short snippets of dialogue if they come to mind. The only restriction is not actually writing any scenes. If that temptation strikes, the revisions for Book 2 are only a file away.

That’s it for today—happy writing!

*) I always seem to run out of steam around the 800-word mark.

Day 3

Word count: 800 (Total 2,400)

As the outline for Book 3 grows, I have started to make several smaller changes to Book 2 based on what I now know about the start of Book 3. 

One of the many painful lessons I learnt over the last 3 years is this: when you write a series, you must write an outline from beginning to end before you start the final revisions of the first book.

It is so obvious in hindsight, yet it’s easy to get lost in the impossibility of ever finishing one book. Facing the fact that you have to do this again—and again, as many times as your series has parts—is more than daunting. 

The actual events in your series can change up to the time you type “The End” on the final page of the final book, but you need more than a vague idea about where the whole thing is going. And there’s nothing like trying to write an outline to show you just how vague those ideas really are.

How is your NaNo project going? Any revelations so far? Let me know on Instagram @FreitagBooks or Bluesky @MinuFreitag!

Day 2

Word count: 800 words (1,600 total)

With the revisions for The House, Book 2 in The Spheres Series going on at the same time, I can dedicate about an hour a day to the NaNo challenge—if I’m lucky. At my current pace—in a rough outline mode—this translates to roughly 800 words per session.
I am not fussed about making the 50k word count anyway. I’m using the challenge more as a motivational tool to start work on Book 3, and I can already see how helpful the outline for Book 3 will be for the final revisions of Book 2.

So yay, I guess.

How is your NaNo project going? Let me know on Instagram @FreitagBooks or Bluesky @MinuFreitag!

Day 1

Word count: 800

A nagging feeling had been haunting me the whole week. I knew I had forgotten something—something big… . Like taking part in NaNoRebel 2024 to write the outline for The Spheres Book 3.

So this might be possibly the worst first day in the history of Nano participation, but who cares? 

I turn to my laptop, open a new document. A blank page awaits me—white,  innocent, and full of potential—and I start to type:

The Spheres, Book 3…

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