The Home Stretch

Having done the thing with the scene charts, I realized that I kind of forgot to include an Act 3 in my planning. I burned a couple of days figuring that out and then figuring out what to do about it, and then had to do some rewriting to allow for a different sequence of events. Just part of the process. I'm not stressing out about it, which is unusual of me. If I miss my not-NaNo goal, well, I've still gotten a huge chunk of writing done in November, and am on track for end of year delivery to my betas.

That means it's time to line up the next project, right? RIGHT? I have two projects in my mental queue. One of them I drafted in a previous NaNo, the other is just a germ of an idea. It would be efficient to work on the first one, but that book also has some things in common with the one I'm working on now, so maybe it would be better to shift scenes there, or to do some other kind of change-up in my writing. Something to think about as we head for the new year.

The Prometheus Tapestry

81,413/100,000

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

Wibbling

Feeling all sorts of wibbly about the book as I head into the final conflict. Worries include, but are not limited to:

•  Have I any business even trying to write this sort of character
• Is every thought contained herein unbearably peurile and risible
• Do all of my stories sound alike
• What am I doing trying to cram so many ideas into a single novel
• How many times have I listened to Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces today

The cure for wibbling: get back to writing. I may well have no business doing this, but all I can do is do it, and give it to my beta readers, and possibly die of embarrassment, which isn't really any big deal.

The Prometheus Tapestry

70,404/100,000

Not-NaNo Week 2

Did anyone get the number of that week? I'm sure it was doing at least 120 when it passed me. Life continues to be life, to feature homework and the day job and bedtime tantrums and school lunches and museum trips. I finally found the gym at the new office and have been there two days in a row. I have been working hard on the book, and am generally happy with how it's going. I'm going to have a lot of threads to juggle in Act 3, but at the moment this inspires interest rather than dread.

The Prometheus Tapestry

62,200/100,000

Not-NaNo Week 1

Today is one of those mild, damp days that we sometimes get here in November. I remember a Thanksgiving like this when we lived in Worcester, the kids running around outside without jackets. The weather invites melancholy, or perhaps it's the much-interrupted night of sleep as 3yo battles some congestive virus or other.

So far, I am keeping the writing pace up. Yesterday was rough--I realized early in chapter 15 that I had made a wrong turn, and spent much of the day considering that. It didn't take too much fixing, however, and I hope the make progress again today. Over the halfway line now.

The Prometheus Tapestry

51,100/100,000

Movin' Right Along!

I sent my stuff to Angry Robot today. It felt a little weird working on the synopsis again after all this time, but I was reminded of the fact that I really, really like that book. Maybe it isn't publication-worthy after all, maybe it doesn't have a market, but at least I wrote something that I still enjoy looking at two years later.

The Prometheus Tapestry

48,495/100,000

Not Exactly a NaNoWriMo

I had planned, way back at the beginning of 2013, to do NaNo again. I've done it before (as recorded elsewhere on this blog), and I find it really useful. According to my original time-table, of course, I was supposed to be done with this revision already, but I'm not unhappy with where I am.

The rewrite is chugging along nicely. There have been missteps and wobbles, and a recurrent fear that I will run out of Plot, but so far I've recovered from those and kept going. Most importantly, I'm having fun writing this story. Given where I was, say, six months ago, this is monumental. I wonder if one of the worst things that happens when we don't write is that we start to fear the process.

So I won't be doing an official NaNo this month, but I intend to keep up my current schedule. If I do that, I will hit the 2/3 mark by the end of November, and be on track to finish this draft for New Years.

In addition, I've started preparing a submission package on Fury's Flight for Angry Robot's open door period.  I'm being productive, I feel good, and I'm happy with what I'm doing; there really isn't anything more a writer can ask of the universe.

The Prometheus Tapestry

41,027/100,000