Prompt: Novel progress report

I’ve just about got the first 2500 – well, 2600 – word intro hammered out to send to the Magical Words workshop leaders. It will be a little challenging not to tinker with those sections any more until the workshop! But I have plenty of work still to do!

So now that my return to the beginning is concluded, I return my attention to the end, or the 7/8^th point, as I think of it. I’ve already written the climax, but I have to hammer out the scenes leading up to it.

Actually, this work on the beginning may help me in several ways. First of all, I realized I had dropped several threads at some point in the storytelling. So there’s obviously a lot more work to do in revision. But more immediately, I am considering what changes and additions will be needed in the final third of the book.

I’ve also had some ah-ha moments with this work on the intro, and I’ve been taking notes to incorporate later in the story. Now I’ll have to sit down with those.

I actually did start with an outline. But I know I could really improve that process. I started off with a skimpy outline, started adding in content, and basically set aside the outline and dove into the story. Between this and my other novel-in-progress, it seems I can fly by the seat of my pants for about 50,000 words, before I crash and burn. So, lesson learned for next time: learn to do better outlining!

How can I use that knowledge here? I’ve taken my scene titles (I don’t really consider them chapters) and pulled them into a list. It highlighted my POV issues, for one thing. I think I can use this as a modified outline and push into the final part of the story, starting with scene titles/descriptions.

I’m still struggling a bit with my “dark teatime of the soul” – can I do this?

I’m going to pick myself up, pull up my big girl panties, and announce to the Universe:

“Yes I can!”

Dogs in House	Houdini
Music	ELO, Time
Time writing	15 minutes
April word count	2585