Or to feed a dinner guest.ĭuring the last few Designated Writing Periods (that is, lunch breaks) I did not move forward with the story. I felt less like a writer of careful prose than a guy running down the aisles at the supermarket, throwing ingredients into the cart and promising you a good meal at some point down the road. That's not economy of style, but stinginess with the narrative elements. A final act that I thought would take 10,000 words to tell looked like it was going to be written in more like 4,000 words.
I look at some of the scenes wrote this week and I realize that they were not much more than sketches of scenes. The trouble is, it would be a crappy, rushed narrative. There aren't that many actual events left to narrate. Hell, if I really tried, I could finish the book up in a couple of hours tonight.
I have been hurrying just for the sake of hurrying, or for the sake of my self-imposed end-of-September deadline. I told her she was wrong, but of course she's right. Last night Mighty Reader told me that I was moving so quickly just so I'd be done with this first draft. But part of it is just me, hurrying my way through the writing. Part of that is due to the whirl of character activity and the rush of events in the story itself (and-for those familiar with my work-all the killing going on). As I approach the end of my current WIP's first draft, I can't help but feel as though I have been sprinting through the scenes toward the final page.