As arbitrarily as it started, Fifties month is now at an end, despite the heading to this post. I’ve now become submerged beneath a rising tide of pantomime preparations and Christmas-related stuff – if only they didn’t always coincide!
A head of steam is what I’m hoping to build up before I look at my NaNoWriMo novel again, which will be in my Christmas and New Year holidays if everything goes according to plan – I always fondly imagine life won’t get in the way, despite all previous evidence to the contrary. I need to feel enthusiastic about it again in order to write the extra chapters I know I need. The new chapters are partly to add to the word count and make this into a reasonably-sized novel, but partly because I am already only too aware that there are some massive holes in the plot. One of them became obvious near the end, when my characters jumped to conclusions on a couple of tiny scraps of evidence and found themselves in the middle of an unexpected incident on board the boat train to the Continent.
There is also the astronomical feeling I’ve already described on one of my other blogs: http://mccallumogilvy.wordpress.com/2012/11/03/an-astronomical-feeling/
As the novel has been marinating in my mind, I’ve started to wonder if readers too will be puzzled by the novel-shaped gap near the start of ‘The Lion and Unicorn Quest’ and if so, what I should do about it. I am reluctant to try and incorporate a whole extra sub-plot into this novel, especially if it’s actually a plot that deserves to stand on its own. On the other hand going back to write it as a separate thing will impinge on what I laughingly call my writing schedule. If I temporarily imagine my mind is a court-room rather than the quaint dusty antique shop it resembles, the jury is still out on that one.
I think the head of steam, however, is already building up.
Cecilia Peartree - woman of mystery 