Trucking along on Fog Island
Words written for current novel: 46,000.
Things started spinning out of a control a little bit today, and some things happened that I didn't expect. Normally that makes me happy because I say "Oh, the characters are acting on their own and not as little puppets of the author. Badass!" I think that's generally the right reaction when that happens. But today it raised some dangerous questions and caused me to go back and revise a big section of outline. The thing is, of course, that when characters' actions veer away from the outline, sometimes it feels like the strings of the puppet have been cut and other times it feels like deeper strings have been revealed. The new master isn't the conscious mind of the author, in other words, but some subterranean psychological operator. In this case, it happened in a kind of literal way.
Well, perhaps I should put it down until Monday. Some other shocking things took place personally so it may just be the wrong time to keep barreling through with it.
Things started spinning out of a control a little bit today, and some things happened that I didn't expect. Normally that makes me happy because I say "Oh, the characters are acting on their own and not as little puppets of the author. Badass!" I think that's generally the right reaction when that happens. But today it raised some dangerous questions and caused me to go back and revise a big section of outline. The thing is, of course, that when characters' actions veer away from the outline, sometimes it feels like the strings of the puppet have been cut and other times it feels like deeper strings have been revealed. The new master isn't the conscious mind of the author, in other words, but some subterranean psychological operator. In this case, it happened in a kind of literal way.
Well, perhaps I should put it down until Monday. Some other shocking things took place personally so it may just be the wrong time to keep barreling through with it.