Second Half

I've reached the halfway point, not only in words but also the ides of November. I'm still battling a cold, still scared shitless about my future, and still not doing anything to improve my lot in life.

But the novel may be emerging. I've really been neglecting blogs, both mine and others, of late, as well as forum postings. I've been living in a dream world, too, so between everything, I've been remiss about keeping this and everything else current.

This past weekend our LA group was challenged by the group in Santa Barbara to see who could write the most. The results were painful, with most of the five LA writers having weekend totals of over ten thousand. I did much less than that, as did everyone in SB, but had a personal victory of sorts.

My novel, or writing, had gotten bogged down. I was never sure exactly what scene would next occur, what would happen next, so I was filling pages describing every inconsequential action. I jarred myself out of that momentarily over the weekend, and the plot began inching forward. Yesterday I got stuck again, but this morning I think I have the start of some plot.

I'm concerned, perhaps needlessly, about the number of characters I've introduced. This is why I edit. I don't know as I need two or three people all serving the same role in the story, so I may be doing some compaction later on. Among the curious things to pop up is that Dina, the woman who works at the carnival and whose case Sid finds to start the novel, is dropping to the background, and Luther, her expected evil boyfriend, had yet to make much of an appearance at all.

I'll see how it works out, but I'm the process right now of introducing other characters, ones I hadn't expected. I have a hunch I'm nowhere near the middle of this story.