A little forward momentum

I got to the writing cabin early today. A light layer of fog covered the meadow as I walked inside. Lisa* handed me a cup of coffee and I went straight to my office.

I read my last two chapters this time. I have a thing about reading my last chapter before I start every time. There is a lot going on at this point in the story. Characters are meeting for the first time, and the maguffin changed hands several times. It seemed appropriate to reread two chapters.

I'm glad I did. I had a continuity with the maguffin going into a bag, then being removed from a pocket. I fixed it, along with some missing quotation marks, and some extra ones I managed to get in there. You know how it happens. You write a bunch of dialog, and automatically start the next paragraph with quotation marks.

My heroine participated in an abduction she never wanted. Then she had to imprison the poor guy, but had no idea how. Fortunately, her helper had some ideas.

I changed point of view to the abductee. He isn't up to full speed, but he's gaining fast. He's already tried to escape twice, and is determined to go through the wall via brute force.

“Hi, Dad. Is today your day off?”

I decided to use the heavy porcelain cover from the back of the toilet to let my character work his way through the wall. I'm going to present it from the heroine's POV so it's kind of a surprise. (Why do I tell you readers these things in advance?)

“I have to go in to work, but not until later. I wound up tearing off two of my fingernails, and need to reapply them. Blah, blah, blah…”

My heroine is a doctor, but not anymore. Maybe she could use some sodium pentothal.

“You ought to hear the new words everyone is saying now. It's 'en fleek', it's kind of like saying 'on point.' It's so funny we were at school and…

Lisa grabbed my coffee cup. “See you next time.” The walls dissolved, and I wound up plopped in my living room. Writing opportunity had come to a screeching halt.

I wound up with seven new pages of material. It's forward momentum, but nowhere near what I had planned. So tiny yay for me.

Back to the paycheck job tomorrow. I still need to finish things between heroine and anti-hero, which ought to take about one chapter. Then I need a chapter of closure for the character who represents all the victims in this tale. I want to show some healing, but a long road remaining for her. I may have to adjust this because of her age.

I hope to finish this first draft soon, but with all the interruptions it might take another month.

* Lisa is the main character in Wild Concept. She's a robot who helps me around the writing cabin these days.