Progress on the novel isn’t quite speeding ahead the way I originally planned. I think part of the problem was trying to find an appropriate voice to get things rolling. My initial attempt was just a little too pretentious. Also, I want to inject a little humor into this novel and starting with the character on some sort of drug induced trip from Earth to Mars wasn’t working. It was cool, but it wasn’t honest. The second attempt was just a real warm up to where I am now. Basically, it was all description and no action. I fixed it by adding a character to have some conflict with. That’s my biggest critique now. I see way too many scenes where a character is presented in isolation and we spend the whole scene or chapter in his or her headspace. My own goal lately has been to get my characters on stage.

One of my best diagnostic tools has been asking the question, “How would X handle this scene?” I’ll finish something and then say, “If John Scalzi wrote this dialogue, what would he do different than me? If Gene Wolfe wrote this bit of description, how would it read? And if I feel there’s something really wrong with something dramatically, I’ll call on my inner Alan Ball. It’s fun and allows me to sort of step outside myself and see the story in a different light.

So I finished the first scene this morning and feel pretty confident. It’s not perfect and there are a few things I’m sure I’ll do to it before I’m finished, but it gives me a great starting place.

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