Not-NaNo Week 3

And just like that, it seems that I am almost done. I barreled through my plot with unexpected speed, and now find myself facing the final conflict, which will leave me far short of what the genre demands as standard wordcount these days.

That's okay. I've got this. This is where the toolkit comes in, where the scene grid and the spreadsheet have a chance to shine. I don't have to rely on gut feelings, though those get sharper with practice. I can break it down, color code it, draw pictures. This bit here? Could use some action. This bit here? Slow it down. Did I ever actually explain how that one vital world-building element works? Whatever happened to that secondary character, or that theme I wanted to bring up?

I continue to learn more about my own process. The first drafts are digressive and full of conversations with myself, with frequent interpolations along the lines of "maybe I should...." or "should this character...?" The second draft answers the questions, but tends to be underwritten. I nail events and characters down, but sometimes forget to include important descriptions, or shortcut to a resolution without giving it enough build-up (or I wuss out and fail to resolve something I prepared ground for). In the third draft, I correct as much of that as I'm able to from my own close-in perspective.

Still planning to have this to the Taos crew for beta-reading right after New Years.

The Prometheus Tapestry

76,345/100,000