Phase Two: Getting Back On Track

I wrote over three thousand words on my novel today. (Okay. It's after midnight. I did this yesterday!) I've still got a whole lot more to play catch up. Once I muddle through the very-loosely-planned stuff that is heavily insinuated in the first book I wrote (now the sequel of this one!), then I should be able to breeze through the action-packed and equally (verbally) sparse climax and closing.

In the first book I ever wrote in high school, (giving me the fledgling forms of two of my favorite characters! Thank goodness they grew up with me!) I was a control freak in planning. But then again, I was hand-writing most of my stories. Over and over! (I thought we had a computer back then... Why wasn't I using it? I'm sure there was a reason.) When Mom and Dad got me an electric typewriter and ink and blessed, glorious corrector ribbon, I extended and typed out this book. More than once. Now it's sitting on the top shelf over my little desk, in a purple binder with a Goosebumps folder holding all the loose pages of type-written paper.

My path to becoming a storyteller has been circular. I believe it is significant that I have returned to the dream career I had given up to do the logical career. I always have been a planner and a dreamer. Maybe the path is becoming straighter, linear now because I'm not bouncing back from the logical things into the risky dreams. We'll see!

Unfortunately for my timeline, the lead-in content about my main character and his world is very important to me and for the second book. I don't like backtracking on stuff like this. I like to flesh it out while it's fresh and while it matters. In the last book I finished, I had a few chapters with one-sentence descriptions on what should take place, just so I could get to the more interesting parts at the end of the book. This forced me to go in and work on the squishy, mundane stuff after the catharsis of the story's end.

In the end, it didn't hurt much, but I'm sure I cut all that last minute garbage out and fleshed it out in an interesting way-- a few edits down the road! If it couldn't keep my attention in the creation process, then it apparently wasn't necessary. Something better came along that actually moved the story. I'm hoping that I don't feel the need to do chapter sketches in my current novel. I hope I've grown as a storyteller, at least enough to keep my attention!

After all, if I want to jump around in the story to get to the "good" parts, then something's lacking. For momentum's sake, the whole thing should be good!

And now, the good rambler needs her sleep. Tomorrow is another wonderful day to reach a writing goal!