Wednesday, December 5, 2012

NaNo's over. Now What?

What to do with this sprawling mass of words.

In the past I've liked my story's.  Even struggled most of last year to get  Nano 2011 Novel to fly. It was a struggle, fought me every step of the way and I decided to 'drawer it' for the time.

I wandered into Nano this year with nothing really. The basic premise was that I would have a "completed" novel when I was done.  A beginning, a middle and an end.

I had an ending in mind.  I had sketched it out earlier to help me get to the finished product.  However, on the last day of Nano as I wrote my ending a whole lot of surprises jumped out at me.  "Wait one minute. You were supposed to be helping. You're evil? Grandma - what big teeth you have."

On the last day there was much that was made clear to me.  Perhaps because my brain knew that this was it. Since I hadn't gotten where it thought I should be it took me there and said, "Here ya go. Don't say I never gave you nothing."

Now I get to be like Merlin and live backwards in time.  Start at the end and figure out what I need to get to the beginning.  I need to start discovery and flesh out these characters, something I've always done before starting the story.  Backwards works, or it won't.  But this year I am more hopeful than in the past.  I'm ready to figure it out.



5 comments:

  1. Quite an accomplishment to get that many words in sequence on paper.....now tidy it up and get it published so we can all read it.

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  2. You mention starting out at the end. I've always thought that is the best way to write. I like that idea!

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    Replies
    1. I've never done it before. This will be a whole new experience for me.

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  3. What should you do with your big mass of words? Set it down for a couple of weeks, then pick it up and make it into a novel that can be published. That way we can all buy it and read it.

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