Brain Fertilizer

I wrote about 600 words tonight. Some minor points that I wasn't sure how I was going to handle solved themselves as I typed. Of course, I'll probably improve on them as I revise/polish after I complete the whole thing.

What I'm finding...

...is that little things at one point can really affect stuff at other points. I cannot hold the complete concept of a complete novel in my head, at least not at this time. Maybe professional writers can, I dunno. My character will do something in chapter 3 that reveals more of his character to me, and then I'll realize I can reveal even more of that same aspect back in chapter 1, so I go back and add more, which slightly changes how things proceed, which resolves something I didn't think flowed well enough, and it all turns out better. But if I'd waited to resolve the problem in chapter 1 before moving on, I would never have made it to chapter 3 to think of the resolution.

That's why the NaNoWriMo back in November helped me quite a bit, even tho I barely got 1/10th of the way at that time: it helped me to realize that you should just write, write, write, write, write, write. The more you write, the more you have to cut away to leave the good stuff. You know that old joke about the sculptor and the elephant? Well, I think that's no joke for a writer.

In any case, the most important news? I'm over 10,000 words! I have no idea how many words I'll end up with before I pronounce it "complete", and I'll probably try to overshoot for the reason I just stated above, but I feel like I'm more than 1/5th the way there now. Since this 10,000 words includes only about 6 weeks of actual writing....and much of that in fits and starts that I think I can improve upon, I still think the idea of finishing by Independence Day should be quite doable. Particularly since I'll be deployed much of that time, and being away from the distractions of the daily grind actually helps my writing discipline (although everything else about deploying sucks!).

Let me know if any of these musings on writing help you in your own writing attempt, okay? If you have any other tips, as well, leave 'em in the comments of my most recent "writing" post.