aamcnamara

Turns out there probably is, in fact, enough in the rest of this novel to get to 80k. At least, if the current pace is anything to go by.

I discovered a terrace at my local library. It is rather bare, but it does have a table and some chairs which one can move around and sit in the sun with. I am not sure if I would use it again, or recommend it, as it is not nearly as enjoyable as sitting under the tree on their front lawn--no shade, no trees, no grass.

However, it was a good expedition. And clearly I've been getting something done, so all is well, even if I have had to squint at the screen because of the sun.

The end of the novel is coming up rather sooner than I had expected. Both wordcount- and story-wise. I am not sure if I want to be done with this world. I know that I should probably enjoy this feeling while it lasts, because eventually the point will come in revisions when I hate it, but it is still going to be sad when I have to type "the end".

All I can say is that I'd better have something else lined up to start working on when I finish this, or I will be lost.

And the end of a chapter, and another plot point falls into place.

Now we just need to collect the protagonists, stick them into an intellectual debate, and defeat the big evil. Then everyone can have doughnuts and go home.

...with thorny bits along the way, but hey, what would a novel be if it didn't have thorny bits?

And after that, I get to stop thinking about this novel for a while and just write some other stuff, until I figure out what I'm doing with it enough to come back and rewrite it.

In the meantime, there may be a short story in my head. I am going to go and encourage it to come out.

20k (or 17k) feels like less when it's at the end of a novel than at the beginning, but it still feels like a lot.

In other words, when I had the first 20k of this novel, I was very pleased with myself. I felt like I had gotten a lot done.

Now, with 20k (or rather 17k) left of the novel, it just feels like I have the last few events to put into place and then it will all be done and over with. Which is... not really true.

On the other hand, I can't think of this 20k (17k) as being A Lot Wow, because if I do, I will start to panic and never get anything done.

I thought it was supposed to get easy near the end?

I guess if it turns out to be shorter I can just add in a few thousand words of Epilogue where they all apologize to each other for being mean and everyone reconciles. Or don't reconcile. And in the next draft I will actually describe things instead of just being vague, and that will make up for it, and no one will ever know.

(Yes, this is known as bribing myself with the promise of Easy to get myself writing, because probably my length prediction of 80k will turn out to be right anyway.)

Again, late-night post before bed.

Got 2k done. Went to a tiny coffee shop, where there were nine (I counted) laptop people sitting in a line around the edge of the coffee shop, their backs to the walls. There was a tenth laptop person, who had to sit next to the fireplace. All of us could see his screen.

The part I dislike about coffee shop writing is when they play music over the speakers. Drowning it out with my own feels rude, but their music rarely helps me to write.

Just after I got 2,000 words for the day, it was time to have dinner and go off to the local SFF-y writers' meetup snurri organizes. Which was fun! I like hanging out with writer-types.

...yeah, all right, I am too tired to even be properly excited about meeting other local writers. Bed for me.

Our Heroes keep getting evenings off from fighting evil in this part of the novel. (Another thing to be fixed in the next draft.) I've always stuck in a little bit about what happens that evening that isn't fighting evil, because they have so much extra time, but sometimes my stock of other conflict runs out.

I was thinking about this last night, wondering what they do when they aren't, well, fighting evil, and went, "I bet they play cards."

So now? I'm pretty sure that they're playing bridge in the evenings.

The sad part is, I could totally write those scenes. Maybe not who wins--I don't know all that much about bridge--but how they interact with the game.

...which is with deleting the ~1,000 words yesterday that went completely wrong. I didn't get any more writing done that day, but today went better. Some days are like that.

Fortunately, some days are also like this.

(And the thousand wrong words are saved in my Notes file, because they may someday be useful in something else--there's a short story in there, for one thing--but they are definitely not a part of this.)

It also doesn't hurt that today broke the spell of chilly, autumnal days here. Sunlight always helps.

I can slow down a little now; I should be averaging about a thousand words a day to get the draft out by the end of July.

I may be forced to take this weekend off, but I'll make up for it before and after, and use the time itself for lazing around and planning my next project. Whatever that turns out to be.

Right now? The next twisty thing has worked itself out for me, and I am Pleased.

Okay, I am calling this a win for today, because I was out almost all of the day. Almost-last of the grad parties, errands (farmer's market! library!), etc., devoured lots of time.

Tomorrow will probably be similarly packed.

Still, I got pretty close to "desired word count", and I finished a chapter, which is officially the first named chapter in the book. That counts for something.

(The chapter title just popped out of the text. All right, said I, and went back to add it into the heading.)

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.

1. I would totally read Tom Bombadil fanfic.

2. ( YA Panels at SFF Cons, How They Succeed and How They Fail )
I would be interested to hear opinions on this one. From people of any age, who have any range of interest in YA.

3. I need to start reading a lot more nonfiction.

4. Today is my official Day to Relax and Not See People. And, you know, keep working on the novel. (And slush.)

5.