A Long Day Just Keeps Getting Longer
Mood:  energetic
Now Playing: "When God Comes and Gathers His Jewels" Merle Haggard
Topic: The NaNo Task

NaNo WIP: "The Salt Lake Concert"
Word Count Today: 1,278
Word Count Total: 12,537

I have had to go "out of order" on this book for a bit. There are several holes in the plot that will only become seamless when additional patches that I am makig now will be carefully stitched into the canvas of the final draft. It happens quite often. Sometimes, there's a need to "fill in the future". The trick is knowing how, and more importantly when to do this sugery. Plot doctoring, you say? Well, of course it is!

Several chapters are happening now, but will only appear later. Sometimes, I see the action or dialogue so clearly, as if dictated to me by my muse. I have learned that my muse does NOT appreciate a second opportunity to tell me something for the first time.

I urge you not to try this at home! I am a professional, and I am completely used to working without a net. If I have fallen before, at least it has not been  the terminal event for me. Now, as to my characters...well that is an entirely different matter.

The trick is to graft later--correctly. Think of it as having to reattach a hand or a foot. Even though you know the anatomy and the procedures, you still must succeed one (and only one) stitch at a time. In this case, I must make certain I have tied off the right arteries and veins, in the appropriate order at the correct time.

Almost half the book is now "booked" out of sequence. Yes, that's a very dangerous reality, Virginia. It is a process I seldom use. It is very stressful, because dropping just one stitch can lead to literal and literary disaster.

Plot lines get lost (or dropped), characters suddenly appear from nowhere or go somewhere unknown to me in the space of a page. Arcs become stones in the pool of happy writing.

Careful documentation is necessary for this gambit to work effectively, and  plot notes and writing journals are indispensible to the author at these times. I don't like it but, in November,  running along without a net is sometimes just mandatory.

There are other developments, but those are things of life. They will wait for a bit, or I will write about them in another place. That's a part of NaNo. It's still a part of the writing life that most authors would dare  not talk about.

It's just you and I, so no one's going to know we even HAD this conversation, right? Right?