Joyously Prolific

At midnight tonight I'll be starting the Out Like a Lion/March Madness dare at Forward Motion. I've cleared away as much other work as I can in order to clear the next week just for writing. How much will I get done? I hope for about 50,000.

In the last week I have been tearing apart Elliora's World to see why I just don't think it works. I've rewritten this novel three times already, each time from scratch. The idea is there. I knew what I wanted it to achieve and I knew all the important interactions that will come from the story....

But the story itself just would not work.

However, I think I have finally worked out the problem and it is in three pieces -- worldbuilding, the actions of one of the characters, and a change in the rather too predictable outcome.

You know, I'm actually excited about this. I have notes all over the place. Even though I started the novel a few days ago, I only got 1500 words into it before I felt something was still wrong and stepped back. I'm going to ditch that opening and start again.

What's really great about this is that I have to write the book soon anyway. This is book 5 of the Dark Staff series, and it's the next one on the list for publication. I am usually one or two books ahead, but this one just kept stopping me. It also didn't help that I had a lot of other distractions. It's not like I was really writing any other novels. So far this year I've only finished one short story and nothing else. Okay, I wrote almost 30,000 words in two months on the TV stuff, and over 40,000 more on the novel class stuff -- and both of them have possible other applications, so it's not wasted words. But I really do need to get some fiction writing in before I go totally crazy.

And in a few hours I'll be doing a lot of that, unless I hit a spot and find myself frozen on the story again. I don't think that's going to happen this time. I can see the story clearly for the first time in years.

You know, there is always some book that gives a writer fits. This is the first one of mine -- at least of mine that I've had to work on, whether it wanted to be written or not. It's not even going to be a particularly long book. The others in the series run from about 75,000 to 90,000 words. If this one goes to 70,000 I'll count that good in the first draft. I will be forced to do something I don't like to do though -- that's edit it almost immediately. But hey, my own fault. I just didn't take the time to sit down and really work this out until I absolutely had to.

I have to admit that it makes it kind of exciting though.