I picked back up on Shadow Shoals, another 10k words. Recently I tried to perform that character shift that I mentioned a few weeks ago: Start with a character’s persona on one side of a paradigm — evil say — and then try and convert that character to good. I had to be subtle, dropping allusions to the shift, hints that the character’s mind appeared to be changing. I think I succeeded.

Dred Rowland drops as a fiend into the tightly knit group and eight thousand words later, after dramatic trauma and multiple events, emerges the friend. Of course, this is just a subplot, but it needed to be done to affect the end result I’m going to reveal later.

Towards the end of his conversion Dred feels compelled to ameliorate the angst between he and the sister of a wounded girl so, he recites a rhyme of his youth:

Dream of the dandy, lions and lambs.
Drink honey nectar, eat toast with jam.
Swim with the fishes, fly with the geese.
Sleep in soft blankets, your head on soft fleece.
Dream of the night we sailed the sea,
Dream of the day you come home to me.

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And, in the spirit of every little bit helps Inkitt has a free mini-course for writing a novel:

https://www.inkitt.com/writersblog/new-program-for-authors-inkitts-novel-writing-bootcamp/

Lesson II portrays the three act pattern and to it the speaker models Star Wars: a New Hope (the first made Star Wars). It made sense as the guy explained it. Having some broad organization seems wise when creating a massive writing effort. One wouldn’t write a 10k line software program without having a pretty detailed plan.

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And I’m anxious to get into the 2000’s for my writer’s hours. It’s been too long already.