New Experiences Abound pt 2 - Day Zero/Writing

As far as Day Zero stuff this past week, I marked off Jennifer Government by Max Barry yesterday as my 28th book. Another book start to finish in a day. I think I read too fast. One week until payday and I'm planning on picking up Wee Free Men, Hatful of Sky and Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett, and A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin for my Kindle. The Pratchett books I'll probably tear through quickly, while DwD will take me a few days. And after having most of this written out, I just received a Kindle gift book from my Sis-in-law, so there's one more to read. :) Thanks, K!!

I'm not going to go into too many details yet, but I'm very excited on the writing front. Not long ago, I had the realization that two ideas I had started as Original Character (OC) fanfics almost a decade ago were decent ideas. They only barely tied into the original fandom and could easily be separated from it to make two original stories, or so I hoped. I looked at what I had written so long ago to refresh my memory of the two stories' and happily found that I had set a precedent in one that could be used to replace the fandom's characters with OCs, so suddenly, I had a standalone novel. I later realized the second one could be tied into the first one. Now I had two stories that could relate to each other, but something was missing... I realized it was missing a third. I didn't know what it was, but combining the two ideas left one more story to tell. If I could learn what it was, I had a trilogy. My first trilogy. I've only ever once had a sequel idea before. I never thought I'd have a trilogy. But it was still incomplete; you can't have a trilogy with two books and no overarching plot.

Friday, I wrote out the altered stories as best as I could, leaving many blanks to fill in later. The new concept came naturally to it with the new characters. It flowed well on its own. The second story tied well with the first one, too. I entered the busy weekend with the elusive third story on my mind. As I laid in bed Friday night, I had a small idea, clear, but open to interpretation. All weekend, I toyed with it, twisting and turning it to fit different plots from the standard to the outlandish. I brushed most of them aside, but one plot kept near the front of my mind. Monday, after thinking more about it, I decided to fill in the blanks with the overarching plot that survived the longest in my mind (but I wasn't enamoured with it. I fully expected to toss it later) and try to plan the third book. It fit. It all fit beautifully, like the missing pieces of a puzzle. The words flew from my fingers and onto the page, and minutes later, I had my trilogy, complete and beautiful. I have the plot, the climax, and the end of each book. I NEVER know where the plot is going to go in a book. I have an overall goal, but I never know what happens when they get there. I have almost 2000 words laying out my trilogy. I have to write this; I'll be damned if I DON'T write this. But first, I've got some research to do. I've got some things to learn about pirates.