Staying Centered

Progress is ongoing. I can't help but revise as I move forward -- it's slow, and I've tried to set that aside but I just can't since the progress is so solid. The story is over 38k now and I'm into some exciting chapters at this point. The pace is picking up, the stakes are higher, the intrigue is developing into the full-blown confrontations that will come later in this part of the story. I've had to pause to do some more research but I'm keeping that to a minimum. Parts of this story are set in a variety of locations and I need to gather some information to help me set the story in those places with some sense of local flavor. I'll expand on the details as needed in the eventual "edit" (apart from the ongoing editing).

I've also had major brainstorms on plots for other novels, and awoke one morning with a wonderful new story idea pretty well mapped out. I made notes, and since then have expanded on those notes. I think we move forward and then we need to move laterally to sure up that forward progress. Here I am making breakthroughs with the WIP and suddenly I'm seeing similar issues in other novels I've worked on! I've taken some time this past week to delve into plotting notes for past novels and have gained some new inspiration and learned more about my plotting tendencies and how I can improve. Growth is cyclical, and we need to free ourselves to go with the flow and take advantage of the insights when they come to us.

So, I've now got another exciting new story to work on whenever I get this one finished! I didn't complete the first draft within May (no surprise at this point) but I am making steady progress. I'll have to push the deadline off until the end of May for a complete draft of my WIP. That's okay, as long as I'm making progress. At this point I'm feeling the need to go back and map out what I've written, to help me plot more clearly the specific sequences to come. I'll be working on that now for the next few days.

Looking forward to a productive May,

Adrian