I Have a Plan!

Okay, no more messing around. I’m picking one project and sticking with it until it’s done. And the project that will be stuck to is . . . Driving Into Forever, mainly because it’s the one that’s been hanging around the longest and I’ve got three sequels clamoring to go with it, one of which I have 20K words done on.

Driving Into Forever needs to be taken back to the beginning again. I have two different prologues, both of which I like and both of which are too long. So I’m scraping them both. No prologue, just chapter one and the important parts of both prologues can be included in the appropriate places.

My main characters need major personality transplants. The MMC needs to stop being such an excruciatingly nice guy. My FMC needs to grow a backbone, or at least put on her big girl underpants and deal with the situation she finds herself in. No more Ms. Nice Guy with these two!

I also need to stop agonizing so much over the setting. It’s a freaking fantasy, how realistic does it really need to be?? I think I need to gather up all my little bits and pieces I’ve written about the setting and stick them together so I know what’s what. I need to make a few adjustments while I’m at it, like instead of having the mist like a ribbon, it needs to be more like an octopus. Which would also lend credence to the idea that it’s sentient.

So, why the change in attitude? I’ll tell you. A couple of years ago, I persuaded a friend to do the NaNoWriMo with me. Driving Into Forever was the result and although I did not win the challenge that year, I did come away with a rough draft that was full of a lot of potential. My friend, on the other hand, won the challenge and eventually passed her manuscript on to me for some judicious editing. I just finished editing this yesterday and at the bottom of the last page I wrote: “Where’s the rest of it?” She countered by wanting to know when mine was going to be finished.

There you have it. Thirty days to do a rough draft, and yet I’m still editing. Time to get this sucker finished.