Whenever building something always plan to go over budget. Well, ACoM has not gone too much over the estimated page count for the first major story arc. 156. Just 6 pages over. The final chapter to the first arc in the story is brutal, violent, breathtaking, and beautiful. Of course, when I read over it I'm going to cower in its complete first draft, infantile, and elementary written form.
I'm mapping out the next set of 'stories' that take place. They have already been scripted and outlined, but now they will be made tighter. The next 'through' in the story are just small little plot points that will lead into the final two arcs. Though I have my 300 (+ or -) pages to work with, a lot of combining of events will take place in order to save space. This will not be like cutting corners. The story will have its best presentation. The writing will not be lazy. The final parts of the story are in two parts. I'm estimating 50 - 75 pages to lay out the groundwork. The last story arc (split in two, or two small story arcs) should be 100 - 125 pages a piece.
It's extremely exciting seeing this come together. This book started off as a short story (which will become the backstory of one of the African tribes in the book). Then there was a separate story which became a minor plot point--a character who is a storyteller makes mention of the story as a story he knows and recounts. Then it started to grow into pages and notes as more research started to occur. This all spawned from a short story in 12 Stories High, trying to make a fantasy story that takes place in North Africa seem more realistic, I found out the politics of what I was writing actually played out (minus a Black Moorish kid being granted the powers of a genie). This was back in early 2006. 3 years later, those small pages of notes (with other points of inspiration that I'll speak about when the book is set for release) turned into many pages of notes and have been put together and stretched into 157 pages of, what is at the moment, an incomplete novel.
Some people in their writing don't even get this far. I'm amazed every time I pull it off, considering how lazy I am. I'm a Taurus, after all. Well ... I was born at the early part of Taurus, so I got a hint of Aries in me. Passion. But, I consider myself passionately lazy. But Taurus is a bull, a worker of the landscape. Thus is an empty page by me waiting to be plowed.
... Let's hope I just don't add too much bullshit.
B right black.
