More Howling Progress

I found myself with a rare pair of nights alone at home, since the wife is visiting her family for my SIL’s graduation. I’m using the time to get caught up on HOWLING WILDERNESS, which, like every damn thing I write, is resisting my efforts to make sense.

This last week has been quite productive though. In addition to reducing the length of the Appalachian Trail Classic, I’ve also figured out ways to make the main three characters bounce off of each other better.

One potential pitfall is that I have 26 racers in the Classic and I’m tempted to showcase them all equally. That’s not going to be possible, so some of them will just have to get a passing mention (although I’ll draw all of them at some point.) Tonight I outlined a scene with a character called “Ohio Pete” Hamden–he’s got an important role to play at the end, so it was necessary to set him up at the beginning, but really he’s a second- or third-tier character. So I’ve got to be careful.

As of this writing I’m still putting the final touches on the outline, but once I have those in place the drafting will be smoother than it’s been so far. I just keep hitting the wall every time I sit down to draft because I don’t have all the minutiae in order and that stuff matters in a book like this.

Okay, gotta go hit the sack now. Peace.