Open for some serious writing business…

Today I ticked off another plot milestone for WALL#4 and the series, one that has been causing me quite a few headaches as I’ve jigged and rejigged the current section, endeavouring to get the denouement to “work.”

With anything that’s important to the resolution of the book and/or series, I have to get it right, otherwise everything associated with it, especially the storyline going forward, tends not to work. Absolutely no pressure, you understand!

Sometimes, feeding the hordes can be fun — & delicious 😉

It is a good feeling, though, when it all comes together—At Last! I’d like to say that a metaphorical, if not actual, Snoopy dance ensues at such moments, but more often than not I have to rush off to the next task in the Life Authorial, whether it’s banging out a blog post or throwing a few ingredients in the pot to feed the hungry hordes.

And tomorrow one must leap up, refreshed or otherwise, and embark on the next chapter. (If you’re thinking, “Just like any other job”, then you are quite right, imho.) Although when the next chapter involves a switch in point-of-view and narrative focus, I sometimes find myself reluctant to get going, because it’s so much more comfortable to bask a little longer in the completed milestone glow. Especially when the switch may also lead to plot-and-character wrangling headaches: you just never know…

In this case, I believe I’ll be OK because I already have some lead-in ideas jotted down, and a potential scene already rough-drafted in a moment of inspiration a few weeks back. So fingers crossed!

Essential for jotting down ideas…

In thinking about all this, though, I realized that one of the distinctive aspects of the writing life is that although there are ups and downs and milestones, so much of the “within book” achievement happens without fanfare and is largely invisible to anyone but the writer. I tend to think that’s as it should be, i.e. what the world wants, and should get, is the finished product, since that delivers the “reading experience.” But it’s always worth remembering that, as with any longterm project, there will have been a lot of lesser milestones en route to the big one, which is, of course, “The End.”

I also realized that this current section has several major series milestone/resolves in it, which like today’s have either been part of the story arc from the outset or from reasonably early on in WALL 1 or 2. So that’s part of the satisfaction in concluding a piece like today’s as well. 🙂

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Previous Inside The Writing Life Posts:

• A Little About The Writing Itself
• About Those Muses, Then…
• Naturally Self-Isolating
• Writing Novels, Posting Blogs