The Camp NaNoWriMo challenge finishes at the end of the week.  I have to have 50,000 words of The Way West done by midnight on the 31st.  Last week I realised three things: I was behind schedule (only did 1200 words in three days because of other commitments); I had all sorts of loose ends and plot holes lying about in the story; and I had a long weekend with a poor weather forecast coming up!

I set myself a target of getting to 45,000 words by the end of bank holiday Monday.  In fact I’d done those by the end of Sunday, extending it right the way through to 47,000 with a final plot twist set up.  Lots of loose ends suddenly turned into nice plot lines.  Sometimes I wonder whether I do really have things mapped out in my head without knowing it, or whether I plant things to work into the story later.  I’ve still got two loose ends and I only know what I’m going to do with one of them.  I don’t see a problem with that.  I mean Humphrey himself was a sort of loose end in the Prologue of Lost City.

But I love the way you just keep writing, keep struggling through the times when there doesn’t seem to be anything happening, and you don’t know how you’re ever going to get to the end of it.  The process of writing takes over; characters do the things they do because they are who they are and the whole story snowballs again.  Some people unexpectedly change sides.  Some people have to die when you least expected it, others live when you expected them to die.

The story will continue to come out in chapters on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays (there’ll be about 24).  But when I look back on it in a few months time I expect it’ll need a jolly good edit!  I did realise that the 50,000 words didnt have to be perfect, so just kept writing them!  I think it’s probably going to come out as an ebook, though.  I think it’s up to standard.

And then I really must finish Victor’s story.  Or even rewrite it from scratch. And just keep writing next time I get stuck.

Nearly done at NaNoWriMo
Tagged on:                         
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox

Join other followers: