Today I Wrote the First Word for My Next Book

I’ve been head down researching and outlining my next book, codenamed Warrior. Today, I tweaked the chapter outline one last time and plunged into writing the draft. I started at chapter 19. I’m trying an approach taught by James Scott Bell in his book Write Your Novel From the Middle. This approach starts with the heart of the story, the point the main character realizes something must change or else no hope exsists.

In my novel, that change must occur in the heart of the main character. I’m pumped about the actual writing. Other things have swamped my schedule during the last two months. I only found 30 minutes to write today before an appointment. But I’ve blocked out at least 4 hours this week around other responsibilities in order to write. I also have an out-of-town trip that’s going to chew up some time. My overall goal is to complete the draft by the end of January.