A New Month’s Resolution, and Some Reporting

Last month I returned to writing… at least for some time. For about 2/3 of September I kept the pace of 500 words/day on weekdays, the goal I established for myself before, and even outpaced it. I was determined to keep it to the end of the month. My resolution was firm.

Then I stumbled and basically gave up on writing WIP till yesterday. Now, I have some good news and… well, no bad news really.

Big Plot Re-shake as a Resolution Killer

I’ve already mentioned that I was trying to finish outlining the last book of my Dragon School series and got a bit stuck. So, while writing, I got hit by an idea that would resolve some of the plot troubles. Unfortunately, it created a ripple effect that spread over not only one, but two previous books. Ghhh! Re-plotting again.

I hate planning, outlining, and structuring. I’d much rather just write into the dark, as Dean Wesley Smith puts it (I highly recommend the book). This creates a lot of mess, but there’s a huge bright side to it: it’s full of pleasant surprises.

The thing is that I knew the most important plot points from the very start. They fell right into my head straight from the place where our ideas live. But the whole plot was quite sketchy, and as I began to fill the gaps, I realized that those major plot points might not make sense together. Trusting the process (again, an expression from Writing into the Dark), I kept telling the story as it unfolded itself in front of me in my imagination, believing that in time my subconscious would figure the things out.

It did many times. It has been constantly moving pieces of the plot around, trying to fit them together in a coherent story. At times it felt like it, having grown desperate, would throw all the pieces into the initial state of total disarray and start anew. This feeling was rather unsettling and made me regret not once that I didn’t stick to the very simplistic, lighthearted story I thought it was when I began writing.

What’s done is done, though, and I don’t think I can untangle and simplify it without losing a part of my heart in the process. No, my only option is to plow on until I can write The End.

My resolution for October

So, the plan is to keep with the established pace, which is the same 500/day.

But I must not forget that the next month is November, thus NaNoWriMo. So far, NaNo was a very productive time, propelling me more than 50 000 words ahead every time. Therefore, if I am to sacrifice writing in order to finish the outline by the end of October, I will. Novembers are for writing, not plotting.

But God, how I wish it will be my last NaNoWriMo with this novel!

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