Grindy Grind Grind

Day 13
Today's word count: 1267
Overall word count: 19856

Good feeling. Crossed a roadblock (I spent most of the weekend reading what I'd already written, and thinking), and wrote a pretty good chunk today.

Things I'm thinking about:

1) What is happening to <character>, and how would I react to it if it were me?
2) Repeat Step 1 for each major character.
3) What new external event, if any, is going to happen, and how will it affect the people involved in Steps 1 and 2?
4) Are any of the people mentioned or introduced in Step 3 important or interesting enough that they deserve further exposition, or that anyone would care what happens to them?

As the characters in this story step to the fore and tell me who they are and what they care about, I find myself going back and rewriting their earlier dialogue to sound more like themselves. I'm doing a lot of rewriting as I go, and I still feel as though I will end up with a fairly polished first draft. What will be interesting is letting this draft sit for a month or two, once I'm done with it, and re-examining it as a stranger, or as much of a stranger as I can manage. What will be awesome? What will be boring? What will be obvious or phony-seeming? I am not sure yet.

When I get to that point, I will probably enlist the help of some of you.