Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Thanksgiving

What???!?! It's not Thanksgiving, it's New Year's Eve.

Yeah, but the end of the year is a great time to be thankful. Besides, I wrote this post a month ago but never posted it. Out with the old, as they say.

Jump on the metaphorical TARDIS with me, and let's visit November, 2019...

NOVEMBER, 2019

Nanowrimo. It was fantastic. I admit, it wasn't my most successful as far as writing new words or writing every day. As usual, book club did me in. But I did (mostly) revise and (minimally) draft 45,000 words.

The reason it was so great is this: I found my ending!

During a Writing Excuses podcast, I have no idea which one, Mary Robinette Kowal advocated for the writing of short stories, if only because it forces a writer to write endings. And the panelists agreed.

Additionally, they said that it is better to finish works, even poor ones, than to leave them undone, because that is how you learn how to write endings. And I completely agree.

I felt great after finishing Aco this summer. In fact, it was a high from which I did not recover well. After I found and drafted that ending, I revised (minimally) for the rest of the summer. I wrote very little new material. I sent it off to my alpha reader and shifted attention to my day job. Until November and Nanowrimo.

So today was Thanksgiving. I was stuffed and bored with watching television. Most of the extended family had gone home many hours before. Knowing that there were only three days left in the month (and in Nanowrimo 2019), I decided to at least work on my outline for the final chapters of Haven…

And VOILA! Several important plot twists practically wrote themselves. Each event led to the next, inexorably and inevitably. The direction I thought it would go? Wasn’t how it went. And I’m pretty happy with how it went. Still a little jiggling and chapter POV manipulating to do. But it’s there.

I remember getting to this point last July and feeling capable. Not brilliant, just capable. It’s a good feeling. I am thankful for it.

DECEMBER 31, 2019

Now I'm in the throes of making that ending happen. Christmas break was lovely, with lots of time for writing. I added around 7000 words to the draft and have roughly outlined the final chapters. If I can keep going in January, I'll have complete drafts of two volumes in the new series. They'll both need work, especially character work, but the stories will be there.

Looking back, I am pleased with my progress this year.
Looking forward, I am excited to continue the Lio and Lamb series.

Full of thanks, I sign off for 2019.






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