Thursday, November 17, 2011

NaNoWriWeekThree

By some miracle, I managed to start week three on exactly 20,000 words - that's just a day behind - and having written at least something every day of the month. This is good. My pace has slowed a little over the last few days, but things are starting to fall into place. Setting off with only a nebulous concept of what I was hoping to do and say with the story has certainly presented its problems, but just charging onwards and letting the characters - and any momentary whim that takes the author - dictate what happens has, in a round about way, brought many weird and wacky plot threads into the story and forced them to play nicely.

As a result, my NaNoWriMo project is currently 23,493 words of jumbled plot threads, editorial notes and redundant scenes, interspersed with the occasional spark of potential.

Now, and only now, I am starting to get some idea of what this story looks like. My inner editor is craving to go back and re-write some of the earlier sections so that they fit the 'big picture' that I can see now. Most of my characters don't have names yet; many don't even exist, it's as if my world has a population of about 6 people at the moment. More bit-part characters are needed!

Most worryingly, however, is that at the current pace the story will be reaching its climax somewhere around half way to the magic 50,000. But thus far I've concentrated on the story of one of my main characters; I know there is at least one more side of the story to tell - and then the various side plots and tangents that may bring up to be followed, so success is still in sight.

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