A Week Off Work!

There are few things as joyous as waking up on a Monday morning at 10:00am and knowing you don't have to be at work again for another week. But though I've got this week to myself it's also my chance to get my 50,000 words finished for July. I have just under half of that to do in seven days... my fingers may be hurting by the end of the week. And yet I can't wait. I'm actually really looking forward to just focusing on my story and getting it written, without having to squeeze it into a couple of hours before I go to bed each night. I'm also thinking this is a chance to do a "proper" writing day, that is a good five hours or so of writing, to see what that feels like. In all the time I've been doing little bits and pieces I've never sat for that long just writing one thing. I'd like to give it a go this week to see how it feels. To see how the professionals do it, as it were.

The story is going well, and I'm in the pre-ending section, where all the little threads start to come together and the mysteries are revealed, characters redeem and curse themselves, and everything comes to a close with no loose ends. I'm reasonably sure it will turn out like this, as I've had the conclusion for the story clear in my mind for a while now. This doesn't mean that the plot hasn't changed a bit. I've just finished a chapter that reveals the past of a main protagonist and originally I had intended for him to work against the main character, to the point where he helps others to try to kill her. But after his meeting with his estranged family things got a bit... tense. And now they've tied him up and are going to offer him as a sacrifice. And you thought your family get togethers were bad. Needless to say I haven't actually outlined any of that, and it does mean that the way things play out is going to alter from the plan. But as I was writing I realised this had to happen; his family are hideous and they want the death of the main character too, so it makes no sense for this guy to agree with them. I hadn't thought of that in the outlining process, but it became clear  when I was writing the chapter.

So for any other writers out there trying to hammer their stories into shape I say this; sometimes you just gotta let go and allow the characters to do what they were meant to do, not what you thought they'd do. Trust me, it's probably better than the plan (it certainly is in my case).