So, since posting last, I did finish that novel, and it did come out to about 45k words, total. It being November/NaNoWriMo, I haven’t taken the time to go back and read it, edit it, or otherwise see if it makes sense and/or is any good. (Though I do believe that the arguments for and against stronger copyright enforcement could use some improvement.) I spent a couple days thinking about which project/idea to tackle next, and picked one from my long list of ideas (I effectively come up with three new ideas for stories/projects for every one I execute on) which after four days without writing anything, I began. It’s another short novel, and it’s being written entirely “by the seat of the pants” – I wrote a single page of notes & ideas, with a very vague, very rough sort of sketch of what I thought the plot might be, but I haven’t actually been looking at that. Except when I realize I’ve completely forgotten to put something in, and I go back and read a few lines of notes and realize … I’m entirely off track, and half (or more) of what I put down won’t possibly make it into the book.
Technically, I discovered that, within the first two chapters, I’d entirely subverted the original idea. The core idea. I’m not exploring the original idea, not following the intended throug-line, at all. Like, as in this book, while interesting, does not address the themes and ideas I set out to explore – and in fact, it would make sense to leave the original idea on my list of potential future projects, it’s so far off. (Except, of course, that it’s not that far off in terms of structure, character, or the sort of vague details one finds in a 100-word book description, so if I did write the “correct” version of the idea, they’d be hard to differentiate in the market. People would be confused, and might even think they were different editions of the same book, rather than two books which explored related but totally different themes.) Not wanting to go back after having written over 11k words in the “wrong” direction, and finding the book I’m writing at least somewhat interesting, I decided to keep moving forward.
I’m currently about 21k words into the book, which makes finishing it by the end of November a difficult, though not impossible, challenge. If I’m able to do it, this would be the first year I actually finished two different novels during NaNoWriMo. I usually finish half of one and half of another, or all of one and very little of another – this time I’ll have written a bit over half of one and all of another. If I finish it by the end of the month.
The next several chapters will either be relatively easy, or extremely difficult. I’ve got to describe a war (economic, military, philosophical – and global), and likely have to do it from the perspective of just one man at the center of it all. I’m not as good at describing conflict as I am at describing everyone getting along nicely and working together for the greater good… So, we’ll see how this goes. I have the advantage that one of the sides in the war is being targeted by the other because they get along nicely and work together for the greater good, and have the advantage of numbers, youth, hope, and a strong work ethic.
Yes, the greedy capitalists will lose, in the end. If you don’t know that about my books by know, you haven’t been reading them very long.
Anyway, wish me luck. Less than 9 days left to write (potentially) 30,000 more words. Realistically, I’ll just keep writing until the story is done – if that gives me another 45k-word novel, or requires a 60k- or 80k- word novel, so be it.
