I dropped dead and slept like a baby for nearly 14 hours, completely exhausted having reached the end. I wake up today refreshed and go straight back to my laptop to write chapter 16. The routine seems to be stuck. I should be chilling today but nah, the story is getting good, and I must write it down.
While I was sleeping, Henry Kissinger kicked the bucket. This was an unexpected cherry on top of my already very bright day. I quoted him in chapter 13. He was the role model for the character Abujamah, a Jewish undercover intel officer masquerading as an Arab who just loves to watch countries burn.
Not a good person, mind you, but a rather memorable character and great plot driver. He has friends in the most secretive of societies on both sides of the iron curtain. That's just the kind of well-connected diplomat he is.
A full-time job
The daily word count chart do be wilding.
The lows were mostly weekends, when I had other business to attend to and I couldn't stay focused for long because the cafe would be too crowded, too nosy then.
Some of them were writer's block. I usually went for a walk and read novels on Yonder for inspiration in those time. Came back with enough plot for at least two days every time. There were also bad days where I had to scrap an entire scene because I came up with a better one or I found it to be unsuitable.
I took a month off work to devote entirely on writing and I wrote from 7 AM to 9PM during the week. A shower, dinner, and then straight to bed. Rinse and repeat. Nothing else mattered, I needed proper rest to keep up this surprisingly demanding routine.
Doing 1600 words a day and doing it properly was like a full-time job. The saying that you should make a job out of your hobby is bullock. You should not. Doing it like a job will quickly kill any joy in anything. Better have a dreadful job and a pleasant hobby than a dreadful job and no hobby.
The dedication required to keep churning out words is insane. Nothing but respect for all the prolific writers out there.
What comes next
I finished NaNoWriMo but not the novel. Sasaki is only two-thirds down the "Bad guys close in" slope. There is still a whole dark night of the soul, the climax and act 3 to cover.
The book should end at about 80,000 words at the current pace. I'm still debating whether I should implement the lowest point I planned or not (with Abujamah flipping the script and going to the other side when the Turks invaded Israel). More importantly, whose lowest point is this? Lance? But he isn't even the protagonist.
I have already written a satisfying end to the Syrian war arc. I actually wrote the whole thing last week, but I decided that was too much telling and not much showing. Therefore, I have sent Sasaki and Han to the scene so that they can do some exploratory showing. Their presence in Crete wasn't part of the plan but they seemed to fit in just fine.
Cunningham is an entirely new character. I can use him in the future when Lance enters the U.S. election arc.
Romeo and Juliet
Ping Han's brother, I will now name him Ping Er, will take on the mantle of Percival.
In the original script, Percival had no relation to Heihachiro or Lance. But I'll make it so that Ping Er will adopt this British identity via Lance. His main goal is to rise to the top of the British political scene so that he can be an equal to Haruko, who is now the shadow queen of France. This B-story subplot is basically turning into a forbidden love story with a tint of courtroom politics.
Just to be clear, Haruko isn't married. She pretended to be married to one of Lance's many personas "Percival" to get out of the Imperial household. Lance is just passing this persona to Ping Er. This means, by adopting Percival identity, he is now married to Haruko on paper. But, of course, on paper is not good enough and he must make this identity his own.
Themes
Initially, my main theme was the question between loyalty to the motherland and loyalty to people. This was namely intended for Ping Han but I haven't made it to the China story arc. Sasaki is still in the Middle East and the protagonist is basically Lance at this point.
Overtime, there seems to be a secondary theme emerging for Sasaki Aiko and Shimizu Haruko, who both have their own struggles and perspective on womanhood.
I'm seeing a number of unique advantages from the fact that Aiko is female. She is abusing that fact to her own benefits at this point. Haruko, on the other hand, sees it as a curse but she is on the acceptance stage of grief already. Who will change whose view on femininity is still up in the air. That...would be interesting to explore but highly controversial.
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