I&E follow-along: panic time!

I meant to write this post yesterday and schedule it to go out whilst I was on my way to BristolCon, but I’ve been blindsided by a cold (great timing, huh?) and forgot all about it. So instead I’m typing this in my hotel room whilst waiting for my con buddies to turn up…

Well, there’s only one week left to NaNoWriMo—which means that I have no time left to make substantial changes to my outline. Gulp! On the plus side, the opening chapters are pretty much ready to go (I’ve had snippets and images leaking into my thoughts at odd moments for the last few weeks), and I have maybe a dozen chapters’ worth of scenes altogether. On the minus side, I have only the vaguest idea of what’s going to happen after that, so there’s a danger I may stall at the 25% mark, as I did so many times in the past.

However I now have a lot more novel-writing experience under my belt, so I think I can weather the storm. I’ve got more than enough material to keep me going for the first week, and hopefully by the time I’ve written the first few chapters I’ll have a better handle on the characters and where I might take them. I”m not sure I’ll ever be a hardcore outliner, particularly when it comes to completely new projects like this one, but the last few months’ preparation have been invaluable in laying down the foundations for this novel and eliminating ideas that didn’t float my boat.

So, I’m going to enjoy the convention (as much as is possible with a streaming cold!), and not worry too much about where the story is going until I get there. I’ll be posting my progress every Friday, so we’ll see if this strategy works!