Writing Blog Number 2

20241116 - NaNo-16

NaNoWriMo #16

Day 16.

Stuggled a little today. I sort of wrote myself into a corner, I think, so I went back and rewrote to kill off one of the campers and injure another, which gives me an excuse to get everyone into the lightning affected hut.

Except the lazy guy, who won’t answer his caravan door.

It’s now evident they are being hunted by the creatures, and they have had to put up makeshift coverings in front of the windows. I need to remember that for later and Chekhov’s gun… or Chekhov’s broken window, as the case may be.

But I think still not knowhow it is going to actually end is what is stifling the creativity when it goes into coming to the end of the tale.

Now, while pantsing is the way I write, this does show an issue with that writing technique. By now, I usually have at least an idea of how the story is going to end. I can see where I am aiming. That means my writing gets direction as it reaches its conclusion. Still dithering about how I am going to end this, I think, is making me struggle with getting as many words down as I know I am capable of.

I have my usual Sunday morning video call to Florida tomorrow, so I hope by talking with her about the stories (as we are wont to do), it’ll break it open in my head. Writing about it, emailing about it, is all well and good, but that verbal sparring and back and forth, bouncing of ideas, talking over one another, the immediacy, can really help me get my thoughts into some sort of perspective.

The only thing I know for sure is the narrator survives because, well, he’s narrating. And his wife, otherwise it would be a real downer. I mean, there’s going to be enough deaths as it is, but that might be pushing it a little too far.

So, yes, pantsing means there is no real prep as such, and you will have to do a rewrite a lot of the time when you’ve finished, but when this whole “no ending” thing hits, then you’re in trouble. I mean, even in the fairy story, once the fairies told me they were good guys and I introduced step-uncle Dan, I knew he was going to be punished in some sort of fairy manner. I might not have had the details, but it was so clear that was where it was headed. I could write in that direction.

With no ending showing itself here, that is most likely the reason I am so stuck.

However, I did do some words today, and have cracked 80k.

3797 words today
Total words: 80135