Hello again, dreamers.

As I enter another week of NaNoWriMo, I’m looking forward to further progress on The Pioneer.  Things have been going well so far: as of this writing, my NaNoWriMo stands at 28,194 words.  That being said, much remains to be done.  Here’s what will be occupying my time this week:

The Pioneer

I’ve been plowing through my work-in-progress rapidly, thanks in no small part to NaNoWriMo.  Overall, I’m immensely pleased with what I’ve done so far.  However, I now find myself facing challenges in the coming weeks.

First, I’ve come to realize that I’m reaching the end of phase 3.  This is cause for celebration, but also reassessment.  Normally, I pause between phases, taking a few weeks to decompress, revise, then research in preparation for the next phase.  However, with NaNoWriMo ongoing I may wish to simply write on.  If I do that, at least I will have much less research to do than usual, as most of my world-building is already complete.

Second, I’ve begun questioning my path forward with this story.  It’s not that the path is unclear, really.  Or even that I’m doubting the ending.  But for the first time in quite a while, I find myself wondering how exactly all of this should pan out.  Perhaps there’s a way to guide this novel to a different, more pleasant conclusion.  This one is still very much up-in-the-air; the thought only crossed my mind last night, and was so jarring I stopped writing for a few minutes.

After NaNoWriMo

This is a subject I’ve been giving a lot of thought to over the past few days.  Not to belabor the point, but my NaNoWriMo experience this year has been a far cry from the past two Novembers.  Whereas I found my first NaNoWriMo to be a thoroughly disheartening experience, and last year’s effort turned into my final edits of Wide Horizon, this year by month’s end I will find myself with at least 50,000 recently-typed, barely revised words on my treasured work-in-progress.

Normally, amidst the holidays and college football bowl season, I take at least a partial hiatus in December.  I spend the final month of the year writing sparingly, and taking stock of what I accomplished over the previous eleven months.  This year, however, will be different: I’ll have most, if not all, of my first draft of The Pioneer complete.  I also need to look ahead to the first of the year, at which point I intend to begin querying for Wide Horizon.

As such, chances are December will be a relatively busy month for me this year.  I plan to put up a short fiction piece next month, and spend the rest of the month working on short fiction, revising The Pioneer, and giving my query letter, synopsis, and manuscript for Wide Horizon a final look in preparation for querying.

 

I have a lot to do, both this week and in the weeks ahead.  Keep reading, and I’ll keep writing.  And as always, dare to dream. – MK