Your update link: Whatever It Takes, Part 13

Hey! I posted earlier with the monthly Site & Status update so apologizes for double posting today. As I said in that post, I’ve got a few things planned for the channel this month — all the videos for the first two weeks are filmed, edited, uploaded, AND scheduled. I mean, look at that productivity. Basically, I have two videos up today — the Site & Story status, a video about writing Mad World, and on Tues & Thurs over the next two weeks, deep dives into working on Fool Me Twice and its discovery process.

I know I’ve had some people tell me they don’t have time to watch the videos (which I totally understand!) and would love transcriptions. I’d love to be able to get to that point as well, but since I don’t write scripts, it means I’d have to transcribe after the fact. I’m not saying no — I’m saying not right now. What will I try to do is post here at CG with some text highlights to help give you guys more context. The videos are really great for *me* working through my process, and began as a way for me to keep in communication with you guys, so I’m going to try to find a way to make them more useful to my community.

In other news, I released the first chunk of Mad World to my Patreons this morning. They got about 250 pages, which is chapters 51-65. Tomorrow, they’ll get chapters 66-82, and sometime next week, the rest of the story. I finished chapter 84 yesterday and will be working on 85 today. That puts me at about August 6 to finish up (as I had hoped). That draft is available to the $3 and above tiers.

 

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Today’s other video is Writing Mad World. It’s about 19 minutes, and I’m embedding it below with text highlights below. Let me know if the text highlights help!

• Writing Book 3 has been a struggle in a lot of ways but that I’m overall happy with it and I’m learning from this writing process.
• I need to think about why I write a story (what am I actually trying to say, why am I bothering?)
• What draws me to write the characters I write the most.
• Why Mad World has been a unique experience — the creation of a world that I get to continue. By book 3, I’m not rewriting a story anymore, I’m living in the world that I created.
• Brief rant about why I’ve never liked Ric.
• Writing Liason as a public couple is interesting — we never got to see that on the show.
• Books 1 and 2 were just easier to write because of the story in my head.
• Why fanfiction can be just as challenging as writing original fiction. Characters who feel like the ones you watch while living and reacting in a story that I’ve created.
• Mad World: The wrong starting point. The time jump idea was not a good idea, lol, and it’s messing with me. I get into the weeds a bit on why.
• Learning to respect feelings about why something isn’t working: is it the material or is it the energy I’m bringing to it.
• Wrong starting point really wasn’t giving Liz or Carly the space to confront, deal, AND resolve the trauma. It needed to breathe.
• Adding extra 15 chapters to the beginning.
• If I know things need to be added, do I do it now even it means going out of order or waiting for revisions?
• Why adding 15 chapters in the beginning, with a middle 17 chapters that used to be the beginning means some challenges in the revisions.
• Starting it in the wrong place was a huge mistake and it’s definitely a lesson I’m going to be taking into FMT — I get into that in a video I made for that story.
• Building stamina from writing 1k to 3k to 6-8k a day.
• Schedule in July — time lost.
• Getting into again — how I’m taking the lessons in writing Mad World to apply to the next project. I talk for a hot minute about the whole trilogy process and how starting points have always been an issue.
• Plans to check in more during revisions.