Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Oont: 40,000 Words

Oh, the adventure. Not that my story is all that exciting. Or finished. Nor does it even make sense. But I am trying to live a dream here, and that dream says “write a novel.” The parts that involve re-writing the novel come later.

Back at Hosue Deus, which is not particularly surprising. And with not that much bigger a stable of characters. That tells me either my writing style is such that I don’t want a lot of characters, or that my writing is so poor that I can’t handle more than just a few. Probably more of the former than the latter, but I will persevere.

I have direction, though. And I’ve actually done a little bit of research to help me along. What that research will actually end up doing for me is anyone’s guess, but it helps me identify some of the philosophical points I might want to cover, and they, in turn, suggest plot devices and other novel hints and structures that will help when the time comes to use them.

In other words, I’m optimistic.

I’m also wordy. Terribly wordy. I know people who were bragging that, at 42,000 words, their novels were finished. I’m still in the Petey Otterloop 95 chapters of exposition stage. I’m fairly confident that up to a quarter or half of what I’ve written thusfar can be thrown away, and that may happen as the editing occurs. But still, I’ve committed myself to finishing this thing (by the end of the year, gulp) before any editing occurs. I want to see the whole of it before I start to carve it up.

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