Writing is sloooow. I am currently working on a trilogy, or a duology, depending on… well, a million factors. I’m dividing my time between three different main characters, two imaginary countries and two additional isolated communities, and three different story lines that need to converge somehow.
I envy the plotters of the world, those writers who can sit down and map out the story they want to tell before they write it. That’s not how I write. I start with an idea, pick a scene that lets me get to know my main character, and then I follow where she or he goes from there. This style means that I need to do a LOT of re-working during the editing stage, but it’s the only way my brain knows how to create stories. It’s messy and arduous and I end up deleting as many words as I write, but it is what it is.
It worked pretty well with Mosiac. That story somewhat wrote itself. No Man’s Land and the subsequent books in the series are proving more difficult. My current format is that book one is told entirely from one perspective, that of a young woman named Aurelia who lives in an all female society and stumbles onto a secret that changes everything, for better or worse. This book is mostly finished but still needs some short scenes to smooth it out, and a ton of editing.
The sequel begins with a new character, currently named Elba. Elba is a young woman who’s one goal in life is to be a mother, and she’s finally about to get her chance when she finds out something about the baby she carries that sends her on a desperate mission. Her story will bump into Aurelia’s story…. eventually.
I can’t tell you about the first character you meet in the third book without giving away a big spoiler, so I won’t, but I think you get the idea.
My characters are running around, getting into trouble, figuring out who they are, and somehow I have to figure out how to orchestrate how they all meet and fit together.
No wonder my brain hurts.
How about you? I know I have some writer friends out there, so how’s NaNo going?