Paranormal Privateers Novel Progress

What has happened since my last report on my next novel, Paranormal Privateers? What is my Paranormal Privateers Novel Progress? Is there any?

Yes, my children, there is progress. I’ve written another two thousand words. I thought you’d like a little insight into what it’s like to write the first draft of a novel.

Tip 1: Paranormal Privateers Novel Progress Process

First, I go back to the epilogue of my previous book, My Undead Mother-in-law, which leads into this novel. Then I outline the adventures and plot points I wish to cover in a Word document I name Paranormal Privateers Plan.

Next, I discuss my ideas with my family and add details and jokes into the plot. This brings you up to about August of this year. I then outline each chapter, scene by scene, which creates more ideas and problems. After this, I try to solve the plot problems as I go.

I then tackle my scene list.  This is a spreadsheet of all the scenes in my book, the chapter, scene number, date, time, characters, the point of view and purpose of each scene.  Here’s part of the spreadsheet for my first scene:

Paranormal Privateers Novel Progress

Now we’re up to September of this year. I still have work to do before I begin writing the first draft. Research! I’ve found research is the #1 reason I get distracted while writing. I’ll need a fact, like, ‘how long does it take to sail the Northwest Passage?’ I found seadistance.org which computes the time and distance between any two ports in the world.  Very Useful!

So I went through my scene list researching as I went. Then it was November and Novel for November! I was committed to writing fifty thousand words, so I began well, writing nine thousand words in the first week.

Then life happened.

Tip 2: Write SOMETHING Every Day

Thirty days, fifty thousand words. That’s only about sixteen hundred words per day. But I don’t write every day. I take the weekends off.

OK, fifty thousand words, twenty days.  That’s twenty-five hundred words a day.  Not too bad.  But you’ve got to do at least three to four hours per day.

I wrote effectively through chapter one, based in Somalia. Chapter two was in Crimea, and despite my research, I had to look up things.  I got behind. I almost caught up. Then Thanksgiving happened. Then I went to the conference Chambanacon. (See my blog post!)

Thanksgiving was the twenty-third. Chambanacon took the twenty-fourth through the twenty-sixth. Now I had twelve thousand words to go and four days.  Now it’s time for my last writing tip.

Tip 3: Write According to a schedule each day

Okay! Twelve thousand words to go, four days left in the month, that meant I need three thousand a day. Conservatively, I can write five hundred words an hour, so I HAD to write six hours a day.

My schedule was ten to twelve in the morning and one to five in the afternoon, every day.

I made it!

You can too! Follow these three tips! Then study this next example.

Remember my scene chart above? Up next is the first draft of my first scene.

The first scene of Paranormal Privateers Novel Progress

I sighed with relief when the US flag came down and the surrender flag went up on the mast of the titanic luxury yacht. I didn’t mind firing rounds from my AK-47 over their heads, but I hated killing people. I know, they’re only infidels, but they’re still people.

Inhaling the salted breeze I grinned back at Muhammed, who was cheering and laughing from his seat behind the M2 machine gun in the bow of our boat we used to patrol the coasts and fishing waters of Somalia.The sun gleamed off his white teeth, set in his brown face.

“Look! They’re stopping” he cried.

True enough. The bow wave ceased as I watched. A pod of dolphins ended their sporting on the wave and submerged. The gleaming white yacht was truly enormous. What were they doing in the fishing waters of Somalia? I couldn’t imagine the wealth onboard. Enough for our whole village to eat well for a year!

Our Supreme Leader, Omar Ogala, had organized the fishermen and former coast guard sailors to patrol our fishing waters. He ordered us to capture any fishing or cargo vessels we found. He told us the Americans and Europeans no longer cared about Somalia with the other crisis around the world and we could defend our fishermen from foreign competition—and dumpers. Many foreign nations, knowing Somalia’s weakness, would send cargo ships full of pollutants and dump them in our waters.

Scene 1 Part 2

I never expected to see a luxury ship here. It was as big as a cruise liner, but it was apparently a private yacht. I’d seen one once before when an Arab sheik visited Mogadishu. This one was three times the size! The owner would pay big to get it back. Maybe even a billion dollars? I couldn’t imagine that much money, and I was good with numbers. Let’s see: fourteen million people lived in Somalia. Divide a billion dollars among them would give each about $70.  Unbelievable. A family of five could live comfortably for a year on that!

I came along as a navigator, fighter, and boarder, guiding our boat along the shore of Somalia and into the Arabian Gulf for several days, before leading us back. Besides Muhammed and me, there was Zahi, another fighter and boarder, and Ali, our captain.

“Diric,” Ali said to me, “You and Zahi board this ship and take the helm. You will follow us back to Hobyo. Muhammud and I will stay on the boat and keep the machine gun on them.”

“Yes sir,” I said.

Ali took the megaphone we carried for ship-to-ship communication. “Let us board! Let us board! Or we will gun your ship!” I didn’t understand English, of course, but I knew what he was saying. Ali was the only one who knew any English.

“Don’t shoot! Give us time! We have to get our ladder!” Surprisingly, the person spoke in Arabic. It was good Arabic too, but with a strange Saudi and European accent. More surprisingly, it was a woman, a blonde, from what I could see of the figure leaning over the railing far above us.

Scene 1 – Part 3

We kept our boat about fifty meters away from the ship and watched the crew scurry about the decks. There were many; I counted five including the main deck and there were at least three more decks below the main one.

Finally, rope ladder unrolled from the main deck, perhaps ten meters above us. We came close to the ship. I saw the pod of dolphins flash under our boat. Then they leapt out of the water and into it.

Only they weren’t the dolphins I had seen earlier. Four people in black wetsuits landed with heavy thumps in our boat. They had no breathing equipment, not even snorkles. They took off their goggles and their eyes shone bright red in the sun.

“Zombies!” cried Ali. “Shoot them!”

Automatically I sprayed the nearest with my AK-47. I heard the others fire too. Muhammed shot the largest one with the big .50 caliber machine gun. That could cut a man in two.

Dozens of red craters appeared in the black wetsuit of the one I shot. But she—it was a white, brown-haired woman—didn’t go down. Her brows furrowed in anger and shouting in English, she ripped the gun from my hand and threw it into the ocean. I was like a baby with a rattle, taken by my parent. The other zombies did the same, except the big one. He grabbed the barrel of the machine gun in both hands and wrenched it from Muhammud. I could hear his flesh sizzle on the hot barrel. Then he bent the barrel into a right angle. Rubbing his hands together afterward, the burnt skin fell on the deck of our boat. Pink skin showed on his palms.

Scene 1 – Part 4

He was enormous, bigger than two of us put together. He red eyes looked out of his calm, square face. The bullets from the machine gun had sliced the wetsuit open across his chest, and more pink skin showed in the gap. As I watched, brown hair grew from it.

We were all struck dumb with shock and terror. Then the woman I shot called up to someone on the main deck. The one on deck yelled down in Arabic, “All of you, lie down on the deck, and you will live.” We quickly did.

I heard a splash. Apparently the one on deck dove into the water. She too leapt from the water and landed in our boat.

“I will direct you and you will listen and obey,” a tall, shapely blonde woman said. She spoke surprisingly good Arabic, although with a British accent. Then she asked each of us our names and roles and our plans for taking their ship. She consulted briefly in English with the others, then she said, “Very well, we will follow through with your plans. Diric and Zahi will come on board with us. Ali and Muhammed will stay in the boat, and we’ll all go to Hobyo.”