Oh de lally – the writing is still going strong. Over time it is clear that there is even more things that I had forgotten to include in my initial notecard/outline. In a way, this is great as it reaffirms my earlier decision to postpone starting the manga.

Scrivener is proving to be a huge help for me – as I type faster than I write, but I’m also highly visual and have to see my work as notecards vs just typing in a word document. I would give a screen shot but don’t want to give away any spoilers ;D

Currently the notecard count is at 44 – which is roughly 14/15 per arc. Lately in an attempt to grasp how professional mangaka have handled story arcs I’ve been re-reading manga from my “forever” collection. “Forever” collection books are ones that I will never ever trade in because I love the stories that much (and I’ve traded in a good deal of manga over the years).

The collection spans from Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne, The Recipe for Gertrude, Sand Chronicles, Card Captor Sakura, MeruPuri, Fullmoon wo Sagashite, and a few others. A month ago I was reading Magic Knight Rayearth to really study how CLAMP handled the story. The manga has plenty of sudden realizations and does, to an extent, follow a formula. I wonder if that is just unavoidable if a story is being published in a serial magazine as it is hard to expect viewers to remember too much.

Still there is the persisting thought that the plot for this manga shouldn’t be too light nor too heavy. It’s difficult to visualize how many pages there would need to be to cover the content. Maybe it will be like MeruPuri and be summed up in 4 books? Or maybe it will be like Shugo Chara which is now, in the US, up to the 11th book (if I remember correctly…^^;) It will take some careful planing and execution to make sure the story goes just right. I know a detractor for me is if a book goes past 11 or 12 books. Since in the US they are $9.99 or $11.99 a piece it can be quite an investment. The story has got to be really good to keep a reader in for the long hall. No worries though, I’m up for this challenge. Whatever Oyasumi Yumiko becomes I think that will be just the right number of books – it will be what it will be.

Anywho, that’s all for now. I hope everyone’s week is going well. Here’s sending some good thoughts your way!

Yume ni nare! (Become a dream!)

-Emily