I'm back from vacation and the world didn't end

Not that the one has anything to do with the other.

I've learned that Florida in the winter is as about as unpredictable as winter in Ohio, except it's about 50 degrees warmer. Or so. Once again we had "cold" weather (in the 50's during the day) but didn't let that stop us.

I've been trying to figure out why I've been "stuck" at the scene in my story where my heroes go before the "Council of Librarians." This is an important point, because it's where I intend to show how misguided (and quite possibly insane) these people are/have become. It should take about two (maybe three) chapters to write out, and should set the stage for the exciting events to come. The climax, of course. Fun stuff, but I've been hung up on how to start and what to say.

On the subject of how to start and what to say, take a listen to this week's episode of the Writing Excuses podcast. It's all about this subject. They also talk about two nominal types of writers: Outliners and "discovery" writers. Outliners figure everything out beforehand; discovery writers start writing and figure out what's going to happen as they go along (more or less). Of course, all writers need to know where they're going ... er, somewhat.

I am a discovery writer. Of that I'm quite sure, but I have come to realize that I need to know where I want to go/need to go. In my current story I definitely know where it's going and what's going to happen. I'm really pumped, too; I just need to get there. I'm also not worried about making it perfect on the first try. I know how important it is just to Get It Down, because it can be fixed, later. It will be fixed, without a doubt. I've rewritten quite a few scenes, already, where I didn't think the originals worked very well. Some writers say don't edit until you're done, but my method of "making notes about what has to change" is to actually make changes. I feel better about doing it, and it means I can easily go back and reread if I've forgotten. Both of which I do.

In retrospect, I was in a good spot back in October with the escalating action I was writing at the time. I felt anxiety about it, though, because my heroes were still basically in the dark and they needed to be in a more proactive position. It is act three, after all; they're supposed to be on the offensive. So, I stopped moving the story forward so I could go back, retool, and have my protagonists learn a few more things before the danger really amped up. I could have just decided there were a couple chapters where they did all this learning about the Library, and written those chapters later. Oh, well. Lesson learned.

Since I'm now sitting at the door to my Really Big Reveal (the Council meeting), it's now time to figure out what's really going on. I guess, since I haven't started writing this scene, it means I haven't quite figured it out, yet. It's that pesky inevitable plot twist. Maybe I should just start writing and discover the plot twist as I go, as I almost always do. Then, even if I don't like everything it should still be good enough to keep moving. I'm about 20-30K words from the end, maybe less. I'm so close, I can taste it.

The first 40 chapters are up to second draft strength. In the second 40 chapters I have 12 chapters yet to write. At about 2.5K words per chapter ... that's about 30K words. I'll let you know how it goes.