This evening, I finished Chapter 24. The first draft, obviously. I keep having to remind myself that it is only the first draft and that it doesn't matter if it's pretty bad.
Which this chapter is. I know what I want to do with it but right now, it isn't working. But instead of agonising over it and going through it again and again, I'm going to put it to bed and move on. It's a difficult thing for me to do but I'm hoping that in later drafts, when I can view it in the context of the whole story, that a solution will come to light.
And hey, maybe it won't actually be as bad as I think. I mean, it probably will be but I'm going for a little optimism here.
During this past week, I passed the 50k mark on this book. Given that my novels tend to finish at a little over 100k, this means that I'm halfway through. However, while I am at this point on word count, I'm not on chapters. Which means that I've been waffling. Not a huge surprise given that I am, in fact, me. It does mean, however, that some rather extensive pruning is required.
I think it's time to go back to the plan. My chapter plans aren't necessarily set in stone and can be changed during any of the drafts if I feel something really isn't working. I've done it before without any great calamities rocking the fabric of time and space. And while I don't feel that way in terms of the plot (at least in any major way) I do reckon there'll be some changes occurring this week.
There's a fair bit of exposition going on in this novel and I'm tempted to get rid of some of that, but I seem to recall that one criticism of parts of the first book during the MA was a lack of exposition. It's all about getting the happy medium, I guess.
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