GLORY HALLELUJAH
I really pushed hard yesterday and reached the end of the "LastLingsterNovella" (working title, “The Evening and the Morning"). It stands at almost 28,000 words, about the length of “Reading the Bones.”
I’m not happy with the final five or six pages, but I felt the need to finish writing it. There’s a lot of standing around and saying “As you know” in the last scene right now that will have to go before the story is ready to take a bow. But considering how long this one has been in the works, and how many times it’s stopped and started and stopped again, and how much I’ve had to throw away when it derailed, I’m very relieved to get to the end!
One good thing, I completely reversed all previous work patterns and revised as I went along this time, so the rest of the story is in fairly good shape. There was a time when that would've bounced me out of the story altogether, and I used to always advise students to just press on and not go back to revise until the first draft was finished because that's what worked for me. But I found this time I could handle it -- and even more, it was necessary for me to fix the early missteps before I could continue.
Now the problem will be, where to place something that's a very long short story and a very skimpy short novel.
I’m not happy with the final five or six pages, but I felt the need to finish writing it. There’s a lot of standing around and saying “As you know” in the last scene right now that will have to go before the story is ready to take a bow. But considering how long this one has been in the works, and how many times it’s stopped and started and stopped again, and how much I’ve had to throw away when it derailed, I’m very relieved to get to the end!
One good thing, I completely reversed all previous work patterns and revised as I went along this time, so the rest of the story is in fairly good shape. There was a time when that would've bounced me out of the story altogether, and I used to always advise students to just press on and not go back to revise until the first draft was finished because that's what worked for me. But I found this time I could handle it -- and even more, it was necessary for me to fix the early missteps before I could continue.
Now the problem will be, where to place something that's a very long short story and a very skimpy short novel.