I’m in a weird place with the current draft of Translocator 3 — right at the end of the first act, just over 20,000 words written so far, and trying to get everything into its proper place for the setup before I move on into the middle of the novel.

As a result of a few mistakes I made while writing what I’ve got on the page so far, I had to go back to the beginning and read through twice as I cleaned some things up and made necessary changes. I changed the role/title of a character. I altered the timeline so that everything lined up better. I fixed a few inconsistencies in plot elements that I had forgotten (*facepalm*) in the months since I finished The Alien Element.

All this is to say that while I’ve only got 20k words on the page, I’ve written more like 30k or maybe 35k if you count all my notes, cuts, and revisions.

But as usual, it was necessary and good work, and I’m glad I took the time to do it. The story is better off for it.

Some writers call this “cycling”, where you jump back a ways and clean up the story as you read through it for a second (or third, or fourth) time. Once you hit “white space” (where you left off), you’ve got the fresh memory and momentum to carry on.

So that’s where I left off this morning, before I had to run off to do client work and other stuff during the day. White space. Tonight I cooked dinner with Shelly and turned in a writing workshop assignment, and then wrote this. So tomorrow I’ll start fresh, and hopefully knock out the last chapter in the first act. It’ll be fun, because it’s designed to end with what should be a jaw-dropping moment.

That way Act 2 can open with a bang.

And a twist. Because what would the opening of act two be without a twist?