Words About Writing

I took a break from the random writing down of thoughts pertaining to my story subject, and decided to work on a character. I'd had an idea for one character, and started writing her early,  But suddenly, between feeling like I was drifting about without a story and trying to wrap up my other WIP, I wanted to try some different personas on my one character. So for three days I wrote her - sometimes him - with a different primary attitude or dominant personality trait.  Instead of the initially sympathetic character, I wrote an angry, vindictive version (why angry? Let's dig deeper!), a slinky, seductive version, and a kind of accidental "oops! That's my job, right?" kind of character. Couldn't get behind that one. Couldn't really figure out the world that last version must live in. Anyway, I delved a little deeper into the angrier version and suddenly felt it worked better as an interview, so voila! A new, secondary character.  This week I came back to tha...

 A week into Nano and I'm almost on track. I'm still working on my other WIP, so my attention is divided and my time is divided, but I'm logging words every day, so that's good. I'm SO CLOSE to ending the other WIP. I can't wait for that moment, when I can finally sort out the mess of this year's Nano work. I'm putting words into Scrivener, but each chunk doesn't flow together and I'm still not sure what this book will be about. By that I mean style. The subject is chosen, but will it be fiction, memoir, a bit of both? Hard to say. Meanwhile I'm fighting a bug which means sleeping when possible, which means NOT writing as much as I need to.  My nanowrimo counter shows that I'm almost 5,000 words behind where I need to be to finish on time. That's the worst start I've ever had during any Nanowrimo ever. I'll make it up. I just need to get the characters home in my other WIP so that my brain can switch gears. How's it going ...

I sorted out the problem from my last post. It had its purpose and I'm getting closer to the end. Closer and closer. But it still feels like the moment in a dream when you think you're coming out of a tunnel only to find that the light you were aiming for was just a light within the tunnel illuminating the next section of the tunnel.  My intention was to finish in September and spend October prepping for Nanowrimo. I participated in one of the Nanowrimo virtual write-ins for Nano Prep, and it was helpful. It's giving ideas. And I've had additional ideas, so that now I keep the notebook for this next work handy "just in case". But I still have to finish my WIP! I still struggle with lack of motivation, so some days are weak on the writing side. I need to fix that if I'm going to do 50,000 words in November! I have started writing down my word count, but since my current efforts include editing, it's a bit of a bogus count. I want to be done. I need to b...

 You know how sometimes you have a great idea in the middle of the night and either you don't write it down and can't remember it properly on waking, or you actually have the foresight to jot a note and it's unintelligible in the morning? Well, that didn't happen, but it might as well have. We've had some weather and household things to contend with, so I didn't write at all for the last two days. Today, I opened my WIP and in the last paragraph that I wrote, the penultimate sentence is this: At the car, the farmer handed a note to Lee. I'm nearing the end of the story, and rather than trying to ease into a sweet ending, I'm trying to inject suspense, maybe a nebulous sense of ominous foreshadowing. But WTF did I mean? What is in the note?!?! I know exactly what happened. I have started adding writing time in the evening, when I'm on my computer for other reasons anyway. I leave Scrivener open in the background, and when I have a break I go over and ...

I know I said if I didn't finish by the end of August it would just be a few days later. I'm giving myself grace to get it right. It won't be "right" right, of course. But first-draft right is the goal. Beginning, middle, end, cohesive and coherent, reasonable flow. There will be a ton of editing to do. Later. I'm so close, but my characters keep doing things and hitting obstacles. And that's good. That will make the book more interesting. But it does make me write more. So I'm allowing it. I'm giving myself grace. After this first draft is put to bed for a few months rest, I'm going to start lining up a new work for Nanowrimo. This one that's in my head might not technically fit "National NOVEL Writing Month" because it will be more personal, about my experiences and observations. I think. I didn't know if I'd do Nano this year, but I'm ready for a new project, and I think I have a good idea. I just want to finish las...

Praise God! I'm making progress! If I don't finish this by the end of tomorrow, it'll be close, at least. I'm in the middle of a good writing-run, but wanted to pause my work to document my success. I had reached the point a couple days ago where I knew which ending (already written) I wanted to go with, but needed to finally join that part of the journey with the place where I was. I'm now heavy into the last act, and it's flowing well. That may change, of course, but right now I'm feeling very good about this long sequence of words! I even took a break from the computer to lay on the floor with a notebook and jot down the next bit. That helps. So I'm doing it. I'm getting it. The end is, once again, in sight.

Finally, I have postponed some things until September. Granted, September isn't very far away, but hopefully it's far enough. I've been trying to finish this novel (draft 1) for ages, it feels. I'm close enough now that maybe a week is enough time to get there. If not, I have some thinking to do. My brain is filled with the other WIP, the one closer to "done". I'd postponed the (hopefully-)final edit to write this beast I'm now trying to end. I only expected to postpone editing for a few months. I want to get in and finish it! So I need to set a deadline for finishing draft 1 of this current novel. The good news is, as long as it seems to be word-count-wise (the draft, that is), when I did the math, it was only 360 pages so far. That's not as outrageously long as I thought! So, after an incredibly long first draft gets edited down, I'm guessing I'll end up with about a 400 page novel.  Do-able. Definitely do-able.