Deadly Light – Outline

 What follows in this entry is the outline I used while working on Deadly Light this November. At some points I made changes to the outline as the story evolved during writing. In other places I left the original notes even though they don’t match the final version.

Obviously some serious spoilers here, so you might want to read the book before digging in.

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A novel about things definitely not quite right in a small Midwestern university town.

When they were in fifth grade, Ben Whittaker and Rachel Rosen encountered something evil in the basement of their school. Released into the world, the darkness pursues them through high school and into young adulthood.

Dramatis personae

The heroes

Ben Whittaker

            Mom is a student

            Dad is head research librarian

Rachel Rosen (Isaacs? in the manuscript)

            Mom is a history professor

            Dad is freelance tech writer

Danny Cranmer (Miller in the manuscript)

            Mom is a housewife

            Dad works at the fertilizer plant

Donald Burns (Crenshaw in the manuscript)

            Mom works at a laundry

            Dad is dead (industrial accident at the plant)

The helpers

Bonnie Saxon

            Fifth grade teacher

The villains

Ludislaw “Lonny” Dubowsky

            Fifth grade bully

Jacob Johanssen

            The janitor, proud owner of the spanking machine

The neutrals

Mathias “The Dingleberry” Blevins

Principal Gardner

           

The town of Summer Falls, Kansas

            Home of Fort Benteen State University

            Historic home of William “Deadeye Bill” Cavanaugh

            And thus the Deadeye Days festival every fall

            The place has an ANFA Fertilizer Plant

Part One – The Spanking Machine

As this will be the third goddamn time I’ve written this story, the plot by now should be fairly familiar

Thought – introduce the Wild West character, something like Wild Bill. An evergreen that the kids watch, squeaky clean Western hero contrasted with the plaques downtown about all the people he shot. Historical record later turns out the reveal that Town was the only place he ever had a reputation for killing people

Star Wars hits theaters on May 25, 1977, which was definitely the end of our fifth grade year.

Part Two – Childish Things

This follows the characters from part one into high school, where fate mixes them up in different ways but the darkness they invoked as children comes back for another stab at them

This time Rachel is the protagonist, Ben the lead helper

Our characters:

Rachel Rosen, member of the Jocks (girls auxiliary). Focuses heavily on basketball performance and schoolwork

Ben Whittaker, member of the debate team

Anna Szewc (pronounced “chef”), Ben’s debate partner. Also in the early stages of dating

Danny Cranmer, on the football team but not exactly the star, plenty talented but not popular with the coach or other players because outside of sports he’s got the punk rock artist thing going

Donald Burns, straight up stoner, inhabitant of shop classes

Helpers

Janice Collins, physics teacher – Rachel’s favorite, they identify with each other because they’re both women interested in science. Rae feels comfortable asking Miss Collins physics questions, even weird ones related to the problem

Bernice Stewart, newspaper reporter – As a reporter for the Summer Falls newspaper, Bea keeps an eye on the town and notices when things go amiss.

Villain

Jacob Johanssen – Turns out the grumpy old janitor used to be a science teacher at the high school (Collins was one of his students). He had some kind of problem (details fuzzy) and had to move to a different job. Now he’s obsessed with tracking down the Rip that was released when the Spanking Machine vanished.

Richie Dean – Early in this section we learn from Danny that Richie talks to his dead brother’s ghost. The problem turns out to be much worse than that.

The Rip – In this part of the book we start to get more of an idea what we’re up against. Johanssen describes it as “a rip in the universe.” It’s sort of the non-Euclidian geometry of energy, an imbalance that – in its current, weakened capacity – is capable of causing mental illness in individuals who’ve come too close to it, but not much more. The worst part is … it’s sentient (though we may not find that out for sure until Act Three)

Outline:

Phone call - Thursday, Oct. 7, 1982

establishes changes between Rachel and Ben

introduces Anna (Ben’s girlfriend)

reveals that Rachel’s parents are divorced

mention that she needs to get to bed because of upcoming King Henry Night

Rachel attends football game – Friday, Oct. 8

Observations about Danny that establish his character

Richie sitting by himself, acting odd

King Henry Night – Friday into Saturday morning

            The Outsiders gather for a game of pool

            Donald character development

Also theme of the re-emergence of the threat

            Richie Dean talks to his brother’s ghost

            Conversation between Rachel and Ben about fifth grade

            Confronting the sensed presence in the box

            Discussion of Rae’s decision to crank up the volume

            Discussion of Johanssen and Richie Dean

Johanssen lurking about afterward

Discussion with Linda Collins – Tuesday, Oct. 12

            Monday Columbus Day, giving Rae the long weekend to obsess

            EB Film – Introducing Atoms

            Rachel asks questions about things disappearing completely

            From a physics point of view

            Also the bending of space, like in Dr. Who’s TARDIS

            Question about non-Euclidian geometry brings up Johanssen

            He taught math and science in high school / Collins was a student

            Moved to grade school janitor after teaching unorthodox theory to classes

Hallway encounter with Richie Dean

            “You were there.”

Prelude to Deadeye Days – Thursday, Oct. 14

            Working on downtown decorations (team assignment)

            Paired up with Anna, so they get to interact

            Anna notes the coach’s language about teams

            Danny interrupts, takes her on tour of downtown

            They look at all the plaques where Deadeye Bill killed someone

            Conclusion: he wasn’t a hero as much as he was a serial killer

            Also legend of Hangman’s Bridge / evil spot

            Rachel stops by her old spot under the bridge, senses something cold, dark

            Notes the presence of a dead refrigerator

Deadeye Days – Friday, Oct 15

            Starts in Rachel’s house

            Her mom is concerned about her lack of enthusiasm / appetite

            Rachel opts not to tell her about Danny’s revelation

            Description of downtown, with festival booths and the like

            Rachel sees Ben and Anna, buys soda and brings it to them

            Remembering that Anna loves Diet Coke, which was new in 82

            B and A wander off toward the rides in a nearby parking lot

            Rachel stays to listen to the band

            Johanssen shows up with a shotgun

            “You were there!”

            Shot (wounded) by sheriff while attempting to attack Rachel

            That night Rachel can’t sleep

            Notes that Johanssen couldn’t have known who was “there”

Bea Stewart comes sniffing – Saturday, Oct. 16

            Bea shows up

            News focus

                        Whether or not to cancel festival

Sheriff wounding rather than killing

            Asks Rachel about Johanssen

            Interview heats up when Bea starts to suspect that Rachel is hiding something

            Rae’s mom throws her out

“Accident” at school – Monday, Oct. 18

            Class disturbed by sirens outside the school

            Someone’s taken out on a gurney

            And someone else is led to the sheriff’s car in handcuffs

            Screaming all the way

Meeting of the original four – Tuesday, Oct. 19

            Plus Anna gets dragged into it (initially tough sell with Danny)

            Turns out she already has a short version from Ben

            Everyone brought up to speed

            Details of the shop class incident

            In shop class, Richie almost kills/maims Donald

            Says he wants to partner up, so teacher agrees (Donald’s usual partner is out)

            Then tries to drag Donald’s arm into a table saw

            Arrested, as he’s being dragged away Ritchie shouts “He was there!”

            Observation: it’s an odd thing for Ritchie to say, because Donald wasn’t there

            Rachel tells about her hallway brush with Ritchie

            And she gets into the theory about how the thing escaped

Rachel and Ben / Anna seek out Bea – Wednesday, Oct. 20

            The tale of something like this happening before, back in the 30s

            Decision to sneak into Johanssen’s hospital room

The hospital room – Thursday, Oct. 21

            Bea dressed as nun, Rae as candy striper

            Johanssen heavily sedated, still shows some agitation about Rae

            Who leaves Bea alone with him

            And gets roped into some job because she looks like a volunteer

            Doesn’t reveal much, but the clues lead to stuff in his house

Post “break in” conversation with Bea – Saturday, Oct. 23

            The notebooks, which explain a little

            “A rip in the fabric of the universe”

            One of the notebooks is missing

Taking the physics questions to Collins – Tuesday, Oct. 25

            Rachel loaned her the notebooks the day before

            Some trouble accepting

            Discussion of rebuilding the Punitator

The school shooting – Wednesday, Oct. 27

            Ritchie shoots up the place

            Ben saved by being out sick

            Donald figures it out, sees Ritchie in the hallway

warns Danny and Rachel; they hide

Sheriff (called by Donald) shoots Ritchie

            But Collins and Anna are killed

            Ritchie is captured by the cops

            Screams that he wanted to kill himself but “the job isn’t done”

            Out on the front lawn, Drexel: “Winged another one.”

The aftermath – Saturday, October 30

            At Anna’s funeral

            Bea discovers that Ritchie had a list

            All the names on it (including her own) were people who knew about the Rip

Part Three – Homecoming

December, senior year of college. Protagonists called back by the death of Donald. Story is told alternating between Rachel and Ben’s perspectives. Relationship with lead support renews, and together they face a final showdown with the rotten core of their home town.

Ben comes home (Ben) – Thursday, December 17, 1987

            Driving home from CU Boulder

            Stuck in a motel when snow closes the interstate

            Mental illness revealed – claustrophobia (feeling surrounded by snow)

            Also sleeping with the lights on

            Ponders coming back, the fear early on that the Rip would get him

            Still a feeling of unease

Rachel comes home (Rachel) – Friday, December 18

            Stays with her mother

            Who is alcoholic and distant / suffering from extreme loneliness

            Art History professor Mom has taken down all of the art from the walls

            Dad’s space downstairs is still there

            Mental illness revealed – obsession with re-trapping the Rip

Funeral (Ben) – Saturday, December 19

            At least brief coverage of the funeral

            Danny low humming “I Am Chicken Man”

            Ben’s family attends / little brother Mikey has become a surly teen

            Visits Anna’s grave

A visit to the local tattoo shop for memorial ink (Ben cont’d)

            Shop is downtown where a barber shop used to be

            More detailed description of how Donald met his end

            “Industrial accident” – he sawed his own arm off

            Tattooist is unnaturally surly (Danny: “He isn’t usually like that”)

            Will do a tattoo only for Danny

            Danny moans about how Donald was a better friend than they were

                        Even knew which classes they were in before the shooting started

            Danny’s too far gone (drug addiction, grief and panic) to be of much help

            Revelation that his dad killed himself

            Giving up on Danny and retiring to Lindy’s to work things out

            Gossip from Sarah Kensington

A visit to Bea (Rachel) – Sunday, December 20

            Who is retired and lives quite a distance out of town

            Sign on her mailbox says “Bernice Stewart” / Rachel thought it was Beatrice

            Says she’s “fearful of what the town is becoming”

            The Rip killed her husband in an effort clearly designed to kill her

            Mentions that Deadeye Bill had no history of violence outside Summer Falls

            Putting the pieces together

            Rachel thinks she’s re-created the Punitator

            But is afraid to try it out, figuring they’ll get only one shot

            And according to her calculations, the energy to fuel it will be hard to find

A visit to Johanssen (Ben) – Monday, December 21

            The trick of getting in to see a patient at Larned State Hospital

            Johanssen agrees to meet only after he finds out who they are

            Conversation with doctor about secretly monitoring the meeting

            He was keeping it as a pet

            It doesn’t feed on fear

            Putting chickens, pigs, dog in didn’t do anything

            So there’s something about humans

            Ominous warning, J’s sense that the Rip was driven mad by confinement

            Uses subtle workings of the brain to cause mental illness

            And uses that to manipulate victims to ensure its own security

            It moves in time as well as space (five year intervals)

            It’s sentient (made the Punitator disappear, targets specific people)

            Suddenly turns paranoid about being recorded and clams up

Encountering Richie

                        Surprisingly no violent reaction

                        Drugs? Removal from the influence of the Rip?

Incident at Rachel’s house (Rachel) – Tuesday, December 22

            Rachel wakes up late

            Jeep’s gone

            Reveals location of the fifth, missing notebook

            It’s in his old desk in the elementary school

            Breaking in to the boarded up elementary school to get the notebook

            Back at the house, Jeep is back

Finds mom dead, apparent suicide

            Enormity of the situation (and her role in it) comes crashing in

            Spawns major obsessive incident

            Begins to furiously study the notebook

Incident at Ben’s house (Ben)

            Mikey does something horrible at dinner, injures himself and/or parent

            Requiring trip to local hospital / Ben drives Mikey / “You were there”

            Where there’s an unusually large crowd of victims in the ER waiting room

            People from all sides, university and townie

            Ben calls Rachel, has to leave (family angry)

Danny attempts to blow up the fertilizer plant (Rachel)

            Ben arrives, Rachel fills him in

            Revelation that the Punitator box reflected Rip energy into the circuits

            Making the Rip the power source for its own prison

            They need beryllium, which they don’t have

            Ben posits the theory that its years in solitary drove it insane / Prof. Rosenberg

            While Ben and Rachel are trying to make a plan, Danny calls

            Tells Rachel and Ben, tries to enlist their aid

            Is seen by a “possessed” townie, hangs up

The whole town goes insane (Ben)

            Car rammed by “drunk” Coach Drexel, who menaces them and verbally attacks

            Sheriff shows up and shoots the coach without provocation

            “Didn’t wing ‘em that time!”

            Rachel does a Razzie-worthy acting job, which Bell buys

                        So he gives them a ride back to her house for another vehicle

Downtown (Rachel)

            Crossing town square to get to the fertilizer plant, Egg breaks down

            Townspeople acting strangely

                        Tattoo guy dead / church lady inking herself

                        Old history teacher in a robe and then naked

            Presence is faintly visible, like heat waves off asphalt only much sharper

            Street lights blow / Ben feels phobia coming on / Rachel has flashlight

            Walking past Hangman’s Bridge on the way to the plant

                        A cluster of townsfolk, some of whom appear to be armed

                        Lit by lanterns

                        Old woman with a baseball bat

At the fertilizer plant (Ben)

            Danny’s making a mix of ammonium nitrate and oil

            Danny talked down / rescued by Rachel and Ben

            Who explain the situation to him

Denouement - getting to Hangman’s bridge to use the Punitator (Rachel and Ben both)

            Using Danny’s mix to start a fire to drive off the guards

            The “sharp heat wave” ripples from elsewhere are a huge swell here

            Each wave brings a new tide of each mental illness

            Emanating from the box, obviously the abandoned Punitator

            Rachel overcome with illusion of drowning

            Ben overcome with illusion of darkness closing in

            Danny manages to grab the device, trigger it, drop it in the box

            Its death agony rips him apart, leaving nothing but his legs

Repairing the damage

            Rachel and Ben meet under Hangman’s Bridge

            Why had it hidden in the only thing that could kill it?

                        Ben suggests the physics explanation

                        Rachel supplies the psychological

Adjustments to part one

            Switch meat processing plant to fertilizer plant

                        A la West Fertilizer Company

                        Downsizing in part one

                        Closes around time of part two

                        Abandoned (and potentially dangerous) in part three

            Add a scene where Rachel is reading under Hangman’s Bridge

                        Comfort and aloneness

                        Something (not a storm drain) where the Rip can hide later

                        Mom’s warning about the dangerous bridge

            Make sure the university / townie split gets at least mentioned

Adjustments to part two

            Cut the pool game scene waaaay back

            Re-read the rest of it looking for cuts in prep for Nov. 1

Deadly Light – Final Thoughts

I’m not sure if I’m going to attempt National Novel Writing Month again next year.

In 2014 my mind was in a bad place. I was struggling to deal with depression, and my team had just lost the World Series. Writing that November was an exercise in keeping my mind occupied on a task that yielded victories. So sort of like a video game only not as useless. In that context, the project was a relief.

This time around it was much harder. My depression isn’t as bad as it was (thank you therapy and antidepressants). But the month seemed to be full of other demands on my attention. While I was writing, I was constantly worried about something else that needed doing. And while I was taking care of other stuff, my mind would often be on the novel. It was uncomfortable at best and painful at worst. I’m not sure I’m up for another round of the same next year.

I’m also not sure I’ve got another novel-length plot going. My first victory – Deep Mist – was a combination of a plot I’d had in mind for some time, a story I’d written in screenplay form back when I was an undergrad, and a bracket. It didn’t write itself, but most of what went into it was already in my head.

The first part of Deadly Light was a story I’d already written twice before. I wrote it longhand back in my college days, and I typed a second version years later. Then I lost the file in a hard drive crash. When I finished Deep Mist and was all full of myself as a writer, I rewrote “The Spanking Machine” from a printed manuscript, making some changes along the way. The most significant change was the switch from first to third person, an alteration that made it much easier to carry the story on to parts two and three.

I got a small start on part two back in December 2014, but when January rolled around the effort petered out. It died at least in part because I had no idea what was going to happen in the second and third parts. I’d been reading a lot of advice from authors who insisted that advance plotting was fatal to good writing. Come up with characters and a setting, and then see what happens. I’m glad it works for them. It didn’t work for me at all.

This time I wrote the basic structure for the back two thirds of the book beforehand. Going in, I had some vague ideas about part two and not a clue in the world about part three. I spent a chunk of October telling myself the story, figuring out who does what, and organizing it all into an outline.

Tomorrow I’ll blog the outline so curious readers can see the difference between the plan and the final version.

Writing a story that wasn’t pre-written was a valuable experience. I was beginning to think I hadn’t had an original idea since my college days, and once I’d milked all my old stories for as much as they would yield, I would be done as a writer. So the new plot lines were encouraging, even if they were based on preexisting characters.

So another novel isn’t impossible. I just don’t have any idea at the moment about what it might be.

It also helped that the first half of the movie version of Stephen King’s It hit theaters not long before I started writing. Both stories are about the adventures of kids (and then later the same characters as adults) fighting a force of evil in a small town. Consciously avoiding as many parallels as I could helped push my tale in the right direction.

The other big challenge in 2018 is that Thanksgiving is on November 22, the earliest it can possibly fall. That’s not a deal-breaker. But it was nice on my first attempt to finish up before the holiday stuff got underway.

Time will tell.

Deadly Light – Final Stats

I think it helped the readability of the blog entries to not bog them down with specific daily word counts and the like. But the final results are somewhat interesting.

My average word count per day was 2040. My worst day was on Nov. 6, when I wrote nothing at all. My best day was Nov. 12, when I wrote 4011 words. As far as I know, that was my most productive writing day ever.

Daily counts varied considerably. However, I made it over 2000 words on 17 days out of 25.

Section stats:

Part 1 - The Spanking Machine - 28,861
Part 2 - Childish Things - 29,597
Part 3 - Deadly Light - 24,991

Overall - 83,449

Here are some sites I found with word count stats for some well-known books:

https://electricliterature.com/infographic-word-counts-of-famous-books-161f025a6b09

https://indefeasible.wordpress.com/2008/05/03/great-novels-and-word-count/

http://commonplacebook.com/art/books/word-count-for-famous-novels

https://novelwordcount.com/2015/04/11/stephen-king/

Deadly Light – Day 25 – Done!

I quit writing yesterday at 11:30 or so. But the book was so close to done that I couldn’t sleep on it for another night. With no particular reason to get up in the morning, I started back up at midnight and finished an hour or so later.

As usual, I’m going to take a day or two to let the experience sink in before I come to any final conclusions.

I didn’t care much for the design of the 2017 winners’ T-shirt (and am kicking myself for not finishing in 2015, as that year had a really good shirt). So I bought myself a scarf instead. I purchased it when the site had a sale a couple of weeks ago, but I waited until I was officially done before opening it.

Deadly Light – Day 24

So close!

I got some writing done before and after the post-Thanksgiving festivities, and I made it to within 500 words of the Writing Month goal, and I’m guessing something similar from the end of the novel itself.

The big news today was that the full novel topped 80,000 words.

Deadly Light – Day 23

As predicted, Thanksgiving wasn’t exactly the ideal day for writing.

In 2014 (the last time I successfully completed Novel Writing Month), I finished the day before Thanksgiving. Of course that year the holiday fell on the 27th, the second latest date it can occur. This year it was the 23rd, the second earliest date.

I’m on pace to finish on Saturday, so that’s one day faster than 2014. I’ve got some traditional day-after stuff tomorrow, so I’m not sure what writing will get done when.

But I hope I can keep it on track. The end of the book is mostly action, so I’m guessing it will go fairly quickly.

With that in mind, I’m going to discontinue the spoilers. Everything from here on out is the denouement and the conclusion.

Deadly Light – Day 22

Tonight I stopped with less than 4000 words to go before the 50k finish line. The novel may not actually end exactly at that word count, but I’m guessing it won’t be too much past the Writing Month goal.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and we have plans for Friday as well. But if I can work in some writing here and there, I should be able to wrap it up sometime on Saturday. Knock wood.

Spoiler alert: plot points follow.

Today I got our heroes all the way through the scene on the commons and off to the fertilizer plant. As I wrapped up, Rachel had Danny mostly talked out of his bomb scheme, and she was explaining why her plan was better.

Deadly Light – Day 21

Fits and starts. Fits and starts.

Yesterday I barely cleared 1000 words, and today I stopped at just over 3000 with more than an hour to spare before midnight.

Of course it helps to be digging into the home stretch. Lots of things happening in this part of the book. I’m not stopping to plan out how scenes are going to get the story where it needs to end up. It’s already here.

Spoiler alert: plot points follow.

Today’s writing covered the last of the exposition. Rachel and Ben have teamed up, and their goal is clearly established. Now we’ll see if they can figure out the final twist before the Rip gets to them.

The evening session ended just as our heroes lost their second car of the night. From here on out, they’re walking.

Deadly Light – Day 20

Today was a genuine disappointment, and no way to sugar coat it. I really hoped to take my time off during Thanksgiving break and seriously exceed quotas. I’ve long since given up on trying to finish before Thanksgiving – far too many slack days for that – but I’m still holding out hope that I can at least get to 50,000 words before school starts back up.

We’ll have to wait and see.

At least today’s poor showing was enough to push me past the 40k mark. It’s the last badge the web site dishes out before the final victory.

Spoiler alert: plot points follow.

When I wrapped today, Ben and his brother had just arrived at the hospital. I’m comforted by the thought that everything from here on out is clearly mapped out, and very little of it is exposition. The action scenes are much easier to write.

Deadly Light – Day 19

And what is it about Sundays? The first one went well, but the last two have been whoppers. Today’s word count was the third best I’ve ever done, topped only by last Sunday and a particularly productive day in 2014.

Part of what helped me today was taking a break after I finished the first section I was working on. Walking away for awhile helped me to come back fresh later in the day and eventually make it to the end of the next couple of scenes.

Spoiler alert: plot points follow.

My first goal was to complete the conversation between Rachel, Ben and Johanssen. It took a turn or two that I wasn’t expecting. My original outline had a teeny bit more exposition here. But then I figured some of it could wait until after Rachel finds the missing notebook. It would make more sense that way, not to mention making the notebook discovery a more important moment.

The scene where Rachel retrieves the notebook from the school basement wasn’t even in the original outline. I’m glad I added it, though. It’s an interesting bit of business.

Her mom’s suicide was also a late add. Sad, to be sure. But it helps establish that the Rip is growing and growing out of control.

Deadly Light – Day 18

What is it about Saturdays? I did okay on Nov. 4, but the last two have been unreasonably short writing days. And I had high hopes for today, because I wanted to keep my totals up throughout Thanksgiving break and finish before classes resume.

At least it wasn’t a total loss.

Spoiler alert: plot points follow.

I did manage to wrap up the meeting with Bea. And I got Rachel and Ben to Larned, where they’re talking with Johanssen’s psychiatrist.

Deadly Light – Day 17

Thanksgiving Break got underway today, so I was hoping to speed up the writing pace. Alas, still too many other things to do. I’m hoping for a quieter day tomorrow.

I made it most of the way to quota before I needed to go out and have dinner with a friend. When I got back later in the evening, I did a little extra writing to put myself over the top for the day.

Spoiler alert: plot points follow

It turned out that Rachel and Ben didn’t need to spend much more time at Lindy’s, so we moved straight along to the conversation at Bea’s house. They’d just given Deadeye Bill his final due before I knocked off for the night, so tomorrow I’ll lead off with the rest of Bea’s history research.

Deadly Light – Day 16

I had a rather eventful day today, so once again I got a late start on writing. This time, however, I at least managed to make quota.

Throughout Part Two, I tried to keep each day’s events somewhere near the 2000 word mark (so a day’s writing more or less). However, that rhythm doesn’t appear to be working for Part Three. The day I’m on now was originally a single scene. Then I shifted the next scene to later that evening. Originally it had its own day, but then I saw no reason to include so much unnecessary down time between scenes.

And then I couldn’t get the scene to accomplish everything I needed it to do, so I ended up extracting two of the characters and giving them a new locale to finish their conversation. As a result, Saturday, December 19, 1987, is as eventful as the days I’ve spent writing it.

Spoiler alert: plot points follow.

Today’s session started in the tattoo shop, and at the end of it I had to move Ben and Rachel to the diner to let them finish discussing Donald’s death and set up the transition to the next scene. When I stopped writing at ten til midnight, I was somewhere around the middle of their chat.

Deadly Light – Day 15

Halfway through the month, and I just now passed the 30,000 word mark. Still on track to finish on time, even though I got a late start today and fell a bit short of my quota.

Spoiler alert: plot points follow.

This evening’s task was Donald’s funeral. It was Ben’s turn in the perspective seat, and some of the emotions he experiences in this scene were a bit uncomfortable to write. Well, maybe not uncomfortable. It needed writing, and the task was no harder than usual. But the sad stuff is a little outside my wheelhouse.

The next section gets back into the scary stuff, so I’ll have that to look forward to tomorrow.

Deadly Light – Day 14

Another epic writing day. Not as huge as Sunday, but not at all bad for a Tuesday. Part Three is now well underway.

Today’s session found Rachel back in her mother’s house (if that’s a spoiler, it isn’t much of one). In this part I’m alternating the third person limited omniscient perspective between Ben and Rachel, and of course today was Rachel’s turn. I’m trying to bridge the gap in time between Two and Three, so I hope this section isn’t too full of dull exposition.

Deadly Light – Day 13

After yesterday’s mammoth output, I was actually a little relieved to have a sub-standard day today. I wrapped up Part Two and got a good start on Part Three. That was enough for today.

I suspect that later I’ll go back over the end of Part Two and find myself dissatisfied with it. As it stands now, the section ends rather abruptly with a host of plot threads not exactly neatly tied up. But maybe it’s better to keep it that way, leave the reader anxious to dive into the next part to see how things got from 1982 to 1987.

Deadly Light – Day 12

Today was a mega marathon of a writing session. I got an early start (especially for a Sunday). And I managed to keep at it for most of the day, stopping only for an afternoon nap and dinner.

The result is what the web site calls my “Wordiest Day” ever. I stopped at slightly over 4000 words. My old record was 3500 or so, set in the early going of Deep Mist three years ago.

The marathon also put me over 25,000 words for the month. Halfway there!

Honestly, I might have kept going. I’m within a page or so of finishing Part Two. But I found that I was starting to write things that didn’t make any sense. Rather than waste time redoing a chunk, I’m going to get some sleep and pick it up fresh when I get home from work tomorrow.

Spoiler alert: plot points follow.

A joke making the rounds a couple of years ago went something like this: George R.R. Martin and J.J. Abrams walk into a bar, and everyone you love dies. The humor is directed at the willingness of the author and the producer to kill off beloved characters in their work.

I don’t know if that sort of thing really does come easy to them, but it doesn’t come easy to me. I typed the entire school shooting scene almost without pausing, and then I wrote most of the Part Two epilogue just to clear my mind a little. That’s a big part of why I ended up writing as much as I did.

Deadly Light – Day 11

Today was another non-quota writing day. At least this time it was just because I had a lot of other things going on. And at least I managed to get a few words typed.

Spoiler alert: plot points follow.

Though I made it only roughly 25% of the way to my daily pace target, I managed to dig partway into the conversation between Rachel and Ms. Collins.

Deadly Light – Day Ten

My only previous National Novel Writing Month victory was in 2014. That year I started with a word count of zero, and on the day before Thanksgiving I finished Deep Mist, my only novel-length novel to date. It ended up at 51,626 words.

This evening Deadly Light hit a total word count of 53,525, making it officially the longest work of fiction I’ve ever written. Not bad considering that I’m still not done with part two (though the end is in sight).

Spoiler alert: plot points follow.

This morning I started with Rachel and Bea’s trip to the hospital, and I ended partway into the conversation between Rachel and Ms. Collins about the notebooks. In the middle, of course, is the big reveal about the true nature of the Rip.

Deadly Light – Day Nine

Work proceeds apace. The book’s overall total word count (including the first part) topped 50,000 this evening.

The only complaint I have at this point is that I keep getting stuck in the middle of scenes when the time comes to stop for the night. The scene I completed with time to spare was much longer than I thought it would be. It was only two lines in my notes (one of which got moved for the most part to the next scene), but it stretched past five single-spaced pages in the manuscript.

To clear my daily word count quota, I began the next scene. I got right up to the point where things start to get interesting, looked at the clock and decided to call it. Now I can’t wait until tomorrow when I find out how this part fleshes out.

Spoiler alert: plot points follow.

The big scene I finished was the sit-down between Rachel, Anna and Bea in which they share what they know about what’s going on. Writing Bea’s part of the conversation was fun, because the tale of rotten things in Summer Falls’s history almost became a story all by itself.

In the following bit I got the characters as far as the door of Johanssen’s hospital room.

Deadly Light – Day Eight

Feeling much more on track now. I seem to be having a lot of success writing between 9 p.m. and midnight. That keeps me up later than I’d like (what a drag it is getting old), but I’m meeting quotas and making progress. Today Part Two topped the 20k mark, and we’ve still got quite a ways to go before it gives way to Part Three.

Spoiler alert: plot points follow.

I’ve covered a lot of critical ground during the last couple of days. Yesterday’s big scene was Ritchie Dean’s attempt to cut Donald’s arm off. The details emerged during a conversation between the original four plus Anna, which I started yesterday and finished today.

Then I moved on to Bea Stewart’s tales of the town’s eerie and occasionally deadly past. When I stopped for the evening I had just reached the end of the sad tale of the Taney family massacre. Tomorrow should give Bea the chance to reach the present and for Rachel to tell her side of things.

Deadly Light – Day Seven

After yesterday’s fiasco, I needed a good writing day to get back on track. I had to stay up past midnight to get it, but I ended up with my second highest daily total of the month.

I’m too tired to write spoilers at the moment, so tomorrow I’ll get more specific about where the novel’s at. I had to stop in the middle (well okay, maybe closer to the end) of a big scene, so I should probably finish it before saying any more anyway.

Deadly Light – Day Six

No writing today.

Deadly Light – Day Five

I was hoping that the switch from Daylight Saving Crap back to actual time would help make this a more productive day. Sadly, I spent a chunk of it sick, feeling sorry for myself, and/or trying to sleep. I would have slept even longer than I did if not for the asshole across the alley and his goddamn leaf blower.

Once I got up and around, I managed to make some progress. I made it most of the way to quota before dinner, and a quick session after dinner got me to where I needed to be (as well as to the end of the scene I was working on). Today I also earned the 10,000 word badge from the web site.

Spoiler alert: plot points follow.

The scene of the day introduced Bea Stewart, intrepid reporter. When I first started prep work last month, she wasn’t even a character. But I swiftly realized that I needed to introduce some more people if I was going to be able to make the plot work. In the fifth grade the protagonists could exist in a Peanuts-esque, grownup-free world. But teenagers should be starting to find their places in adult society.

Even after I came up with the idea to add Bea, this particular scene was only three or four lines in my notes (and that was as late as yesterday). Still, when the writing got underway, the scene flowed smoothly. I suppose the structural logic of conversations (which form the heart of this passage) helped make it easier to find the words I needed.