Installment #10: Wading Into The Deep End.

Writing ByTrying My Hand At Writing A Novel

May 16

Bodies are piling up.

I knew going into this that some of my main characters were going to die. I knew one would for certain, but hadn’t settled on the other. I wanted it to be a surprise, even to myself, and it was. It was also a little more gruesome than I thought it was going to be, but that is part of the discovery process. You never know how deep you’ll let yourself go until you push your own boundaries.

My biggest challenge has been that I tend toward the lighter side of things. I don’t love the idea of killing characters, even when they are fictitious. I haven’t even fully committed to killing the three boys who disappear at the start of the book. I don’t know if I’ll flinch and let them survive or if they’ll wind up floating in the river, their bloated corpses decomposing on a muddy bank.

I had outlined it one way, but I’ve realized that as these characters take shape, I’m not always in control of how things will turn out. I have my ideas, but then I have to listen to what they want. So, I’ll save that final decision for later.

I’m at 62,442 words of what I think will wind up being a 90,000 word first draft.

Some days, I really have to push myself to put something on paper. I want to veer off and work on other things that I think I’ll need for my portfolio, but I’m determined to get this done so that I can set it aside and let this ferment.

While sitting on the beach in Cancun last week I found I didn’t have the slightest inclination to work on this novel. There must be something in the way the sea level affected my blood pressure or hearing the waves rhythmically whoosh onto the shore that put me into a meditative state I could not even fathom writing anything mysterious. I’d even printed out the first 150 pages so I could start editing them under a cabana, but no dice. I’d wasted all of that ink and didn’t even look at the text once.

Instead, I happily worked on the romance novel I’d dreamt about a year ago. The idea was so clear, even down to the casting, the setting, and the look of the house where it took place. It’s been so fresh in my mind that I finished the outline and the first chapter.

The rest of my beach time was spent basking in the sun listening to audiobooks on the Libby App which has completely revolutionized my literary consumption. Gone is my Kindle Unlimited subscription, and pretty soon I’ll jettison my Audible account. Because why pay for books when you can get them for free?

If things go as planned, I’ll post a couple of more updates and then, finger’s crossed, I’ll be brave enough to post a chapter or two.

Until next time… keep writing.