Day 5: Hitting the wall

Busy day today -- on campus for most of the day and then a trip down to SeaTac this evening to give a friend a ride and then meet my dad, who arrived in town today for a business trip, for a late dinner.

I only managed to put down about 1075 words today, but that puts me at the one-quarter point. If I were doing this at the official pace (1667 words per day) this would be early in week two, which is supposedly where things bog down for most people and they start cursing their plots, their characters, and most other things about life, so I guess in that regard I'm on pace...

I'm strongly considering a dramatic plot shift which would provide an infusion of action to the story, which seems to be bogging down now with my initial outline. I think the problem was that I had a good idea of the basic premise, the protagonist, the conflict and the ultimate end point, but I didn't do much to consider how to build compelling connections between them. Having a plot idea to start probably was fine, but maybe I shouldn't have worried to much about having an ending. We'll see if the ending stays or if it gets tossed.

Of course there's also the entire aspect of being stuck in science writing for so long, where brevity is critical and word/letter counts are maximum rather than minimum goals. Literary form goes by the wayside when you're forced into parallel construction and constant active voice.