Progress Report, in which I tread a fine line

Notched another 5100 words on Petra Released last week, bringing Magic Meter to here:



Looks like I’m finished, but nope.  Not quite.  The climax is passed; all that’s left is the denouement.

And even here, this late in the game, when I’m usually rushing to the end, even here, this novel is giving me fits.  The damned thing has kicked and screamed almost the entire way.  Just working out the blocking for the climactic confrontation took me half an afternoon.  I wound up modifying it a little from what I had been planning to do.  This pleased me, because it’s a little bit more surprising, and it ties together three separate plot threads a bit more neatly.

Not everything is sunshine and roses, though.  As I’m wrapping this novel up, I realize that I’m not at all happy with the resolution of a separate subplot.  Not.  At.  All.  I thought I had it all figured out, but now I see a fairly serious hole in it.  Fixing it will have to wait until the rewrite.  I don’t like leaving it in this shape; it feels like cheating.  But it’s a rough draft, and I still owe a few more pages, and at this point, I just want to get across the finish line.

I didn’t have these problems with Petra.  But then, Petra was a simpler, more straightforward novel.  This one, just by its nature, was bound to be more difficult.  I’m growing as a writer.  I’m stretching.  That’s what I tell myself, anyway.

Or maybe I’ve simply failed.  Who can say?  There’s a fine line between soaring like the eagle and falling flat on your face.

Whatever.  Another couple of days or so, and I’ll have a draft.

No updates for Write Club.

Bed now.

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