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      On writing a novel, (circumlunar), 09/26/2018
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Would you  believe it?  I wrote  a post  a while  back about
sitting at the library in awe looking at all of the books on
the  shelves; and  now, I  can't even  find my  own post  to
reference. But trust me, I wrote it. The awe was great.

So many  people have written  a novel. NaNoWriMo  proves the
point for me- everyone and their dog has written a novel. If
you want  to write a  novel, what you  really want to  do is
trudge down a well-worn path.

And yet, I  can't help feeling like no one  has ever written
the novels  that I want  to write.  No one has  written *my*
novel.  It's still  inside  me. Granted,  it's probably  not
entirely mine, but rather, it's probably a conglomeration of
thoughts and ideas that were born from things that I've read
and seen and experienced over the years.

I think  I've mentioned that  I've started plenty  of novels
over the  years. Ideas  aren't really an  issue for  me. But
I've never finished  one. Because I have  so much experience
starting,  and so  little  experience finishing,  I want  to
share a few observations- which, forgive me, may be trite or
banal- about the process of finishing a novel.

First, I'm  getting lost.  I honestly  didn't expect  to get
lost in  my own story.  When I say lost,  I don't mean  in a
poetical way; I'm just losing track of my characters and the
progression  of the  story.  I have  outlines and  character
information (all  in text  files), but I  find that  my work
flow isn't consistent enough,  and I'm constantly going back
and trying to find my place. It wastes a lot of time.

Many  years back  I tried  something called  yWriter[1]. (I 
also read  some Hal  Spacejock while I  was at  it[2].) The 
software, I  thought at the  time, was too  complicated. It 
kept  track of  chapters  and characters  and settings  and 
everything else.  I swear there  was a kitchen sink  tab in 
there. Now,  I'm thinking  that maybe  all of  those things 
were there for people who *finish novels*...                

I'm happy  to report that  I'm around  the 50k work  mark at
this point, and  that I'm determined to  actually finish the
job this time. In fact, I plan on learning how to finish the
job more efficiently, and to do it over and over again until
it no longer  brings me joy. Right now, it's  still a lot of
fun.

[1] http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter.html
[2] http://www.spacejock.com.au/