observations on the novel, vol. I

[aamcnamara]

42858 / 80000

Yesterday I did the math to figure out what kind of a daily wordcount I'll need to get to 50k by the end of June. Both yesterday and today, I have met it. This is the kind of daily writing, fingers on the keyboard stuff that I learned how to do so well from NaNoWriMo.

(Someday, probably when I have finished this particular novel draft thing, there will be a post about the differences between my experience writing a novel for NaNoWriMo and writing a novel on my own.)

Oddly, when I write short stories I am never satisfied with just writing a short story that is easy to read and understandable, that has a plot that readers can follow. I always complicate things with layers or hidden meanings or vagueness. But a novel is long enough that apparently just putting one story down on paper is enough to satisfy my brain. As exemplified by this novel, which has spelled out just about everything about itself.

Maybe I am secretly a novella writer, and there's a happy medium in length where I can complicate things, but not too much. (I kind of hope not.)

Maybe I will learn over time to complicate my novels a little more, and to uncomplicate my short stories. (This is the one I should probably aim for.)

Maybe I should just shut up and keep writing.

Comments

[kelljones.livejournal.com]

Interesting! I find I write novels in layers, going from a skeletal ~20,000-word first draft towards a more intricate and fully on the page final draft of ~80,000 words, for instance (with several other layers in between). Whole novels in all their complexity are apparently too much to hold in my brain, for now. But I never write shorts, partly because I can't see how to fit the complexity into that short a space...