![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
When you're a "Gardener" kind of novelist (who sets the characters of the novel in motion, then madly tries to herd them as they run rampant through the manuscript) rather than the "Architect" type (who has the novel all planned out in advance), the middle of the novel is a misty swamp where you sometimes get lost, sometimes blunder around off the path, sinking up to your elbows in mud as you search for the right path to the end of the first draft.
Some Gardeners never make it out of the swamp. I've been lucky to have -- with a few exceptions -- always stumbled out eventually, stinking and covered with slime sometimes, but finally on firm, flat ground where I can see the glimmering of those two lovely words "The End" hovering temptingly in the distance.
I just hit that point today with A FADING SUN, able to jot down what needs to happen in the last chapters with some confidence that I'll be able to follow that general outline. There are still several chapters to go, but I know the major beats that have to happen within them (if not yet all the little plot points that will support them.)
I can see where I need to go... and when I get there, it'll be time to go back to the beginning and make the whole trek again, this time with my revision notes as guide.
Some Gardeners never make it out of the swamp. I've been lucky to have -- with a few exceptions -- always stumbled out eventually, stinking and covered with slime sometimes, but finally on firm, flat ground where I can see the glimmering of those two lovely words "The End" hovering temptingly in the distance.
I just hit that point today with A FADING SUN, able to jot down what needs to happen in the last chapters with some confidence that I'll be able to follow that general outline. There are still several chapters to go, but I know the major beats that have to happen within them (if not yet all the little plot points that will support them.)
I can see where I need to go... and when I get there, it'll be time to go back to the beginning and make the whole trek again, this time with my revision notes as guide.