I had some sad moments writing the part that I’m working through when I wrote about the protagonist being in a busy marketplace with a diverse crowd where there is the buzz of humanity all around going about their lives while standing shoulder to shoulder. I miss crowds. To get the feel of it I really had to stretch my mind back to think of different experiences I’ve had in life where there has been a large, busy crowd caught up in the everydayness of life with everyday worries.
The crowd served as an essential element, a character made up of endless characters if you like, that provided contrast and a point of comparison between the masses and the individual.
The story has had many twists and turns but with the new chapter that I’ve written 1000 words towards so far the protagonist is off in a new direction altogether. A sense of self and realisations from a different perspective have allowed for a new course of action and a literal new course through the world by navigating in unexplored territory.
This section is a turning point in the story where the finer details are unclear as yet so I am focusing on the happenings as they happen by writing through the bigger, more obvious elements. With the end of a first draft novel in sight I am becoming blasé about writing the detail and more concerned with churning out the content. It’s a shift in gears for my approach to the process that I’ve been developing since the beginning of the year. At first I began struggling to get beyond perfecting a point, a scene or an idea then moved beyond that to writing through with the narrative playing out and have progressed to laying down the bones. I’m still writing as much as I was when I sit down and do the work but my mindset has certainly changed.
There’s still chapters – plural – to write before I can claim to have completed a first draft novel but with the end so near I feel like I’m running down hill with the result being my focus has become covering ground rather than contemplating each step.
Before I am even there I have begun to plan how I will shape the second draft and even pondered a third draft. Beyond that I don’t know, and coming back to well before that, it’s back to work with the end in sight.