90k and still kicking

Well, I just hit my goal of 90,000 words for this book. At work, on my lunch break. After giving myself a silent cheer so as not to draw the eyes of more composed individuals in the office, I return to the writing. Because, although the goal I set for myself has been reached, this book is far from over.

In fact, I've just realized that, come revision time, probably a good chunk of what I've written is going to go out the window. Because it just doesn't work with the turn the book took in, oh, just the last thousand words.

Now, mind you, this is not some major plot twist. I haven't changed whodunit or why. I haven't changed the ending. I haven't changed the story in and of itself. But the route to get to the ending has just taken a very large--and hopefully rather interesting--detour. I'm going to say I've probably still got at least 20,000 words to go.

Which, again, means that I won't feel so horrible cutting entire scenes, entire chapters, when I sit down with my red pen. Because, let's face it, for most of us, taking out large chunks of our hard-won words is really quite painful. I'm still not going to like it but knowing that there's a lot of the story left may be able to soothe me.

Maybe.

It's funny. I know I've blogged about this before. But anyway. We talk about characters running away with us, doing their own thing. In my case, and not for the first time, the story has done that. I was writing one simple scene, one key scene that's intended to be the sort of turning point, the point at which the protagonist finally turns down the road toward finding the truth. And then it just popped into my head that this was the perfect opportunity for . . . well, I'm not going to elaborate. But it was just the perfect opportunity and I couldn't resist but it's making me really take it in a different direction from this point forward.

I also strongly suspect that my protagonist has just shifted from one character to another. But that's a change that's been a long time coming, I think, so I'm not too bothered. I'm just a bit worried about how to make that mesh with the beginning of the book, where the guy who just became the protag can't be included. Unless... hmm. Perhaps. Yes, that might work nicely. Massive changes though.

But that's what revision's all about, isn't it?

Home Stretch

Well, I'm in the home stretch on Deception, the adult mystery/pseudo-suspense I've been writing for the last 2 1/2 months. I've got 10,000 words to go before I hit my 90k goal. I fell short on my TT draft; hit 52k when I was going for 60k. This one, I'll surpass. There's still too much wide open to wrap up in such a small number of words and I'm by no means interested in rushing through.

Exceeding my goal will mean I don't feel so bad cutting the crap out of it when I start revising. Which I'm absolutely going to need to do, because this book has been doing its own thing from somewhere around the 40k mark. Just went off on its own, weaving its own story and leaving me to try to figure it all out along with my characters.

I think I'm just about there. Miracle of miracles.

I've started writing an urban fantasy. Done a lot of planning and I've gone a few thousand words in on the story itself. That'll be my next project and I think it'll be a fun one. It's my first real exercise in worldbuilding and its really going to make me stretch my creative muscles. Also, my research abilities. I need to hit the library; I need to expand my reading repertoire into books about vampires and werewolves. I blame Rowling's lovely Remus Lupin for my sudden interest in such creatures. I also need to read up on the rest of the genre, especially UF-style detective stories/mysteries.

But, before I pick up on writing that again, I'm going to set aside some time for revision. I'm nowhere in revising the Taggert Twins book and I'm going to have to start revising Deception. The good thing is that I've got all the big plot problems that arose in writing TT resolved, I think; I just need to put them into the book now. That's going to require quite a bit of rewriting, I think, but the book will be so much better for it. I'm quite excited, actually.

And I know the title Deception sucks. It's only a working title until I can devote the hours necessary to figure out a decent title. Because I'm firmly convinced that titles are evil incarnate and put on this earth to drive me to drink. Excessively.

Enthusiasm

I was feeling kind of listless this weekend. I've missed three writing days this week, mainly due to the fact that I've been dragging myself out of bed at 5:20 a couple mornings (read: inhumanly early) to workout and promptly pass out on the couch by about 9 p.m. before I get my writing time in. I wasn't that inspired by my book for some reason and last night really struggled to make my daily goal. I'm still ahead of where I'd planned to be by this time but not by as much as I'd like to be. (Yes, currently, I measure my writing success by how far ahead of my goal I am. Writing to my goal? Bah. I may as well just extend my goal. But I don't. Why, I don't know.)

But this morning, for some reason, my enthusiasm has returned. Couldn't tell you why. Don't have a clue. But now I'm raring to go, just waiting to put my protagonist into deadly peril. Because it's fun to endanger fictional characters and see what they come up with to get themselves out of tough situations.

I wonder if all authors have those times where they don't feel like so much as looking at their text, never mind writing it, and then others where they can't get the story out of their head and just want to write, write, write. I bet they do.

Really, this is just a rambling post without much point to it, but it was just reassuring to me to see my enthusiasm for the story come back on its own. Had me a little worried there for a while ...

Also, random thought of the day: it's very cool to see animals with their natural maternal instinct. I got to see the kittens at my mom's place this weekend. Two weeks old. Momma cat watched us very closely to ensure we didn't hurt her babies. So cute!

Discovery

It's always interesting to see what you discover as you write a book. For instance, in starting my new novel I've learned that my protagonist has multiple children (exactly how many has yet to be determined, though I suspect there are two), has an aunt she isn't particularly fond of, and keeps a jar in her kitchen into which anyone who swears must put a nickel. I've also learned that her brother was older, she didn't do so hot in high school English, and she was relatively young when her father died.

I like her already.