So, I hit right up against it yesterday.

I've been working pretty well on my new kid's novel. I knocked out the first two chapters and the prologue in a few days. Came to about 3,000 words (not so much, but my target is around 30,000 for the complete manuscript). Then yesterday, when I sat down to write chapter 3, I realised I don't know what's happening in this story nearly as well as I thought I did. I know the core story idea pretty well, and I know round abouts where I'm heading at the end, but I don't know much of what happens along the way. You see, unlike my previous kids novel, the speculative element of story doesn't take up so much space and it doesn't evolve in such a smooth, progressive manner. That means I have to parcel out the speculative developments in more miserly a manner. That by itself doesn't bother me. I have no problems in writing 'mundane' elements in a story, but this time I realised that I didn't have the right cast of characters in one of the plot lines to carry the mundane through. To be more explicit, one of the plot lines follows a character, a teenager, becoming increasingly isolated. Trouble is, he's pretty much on his own at the beginning. And I'm not sure I want to write the whole thing about his situation becoming increasingly shitty. So, I'm thinking I'm going to have to introduce a new character for him to interact with, for at least the first half of the novel. We'll see if that comes off.

I'm also feeling that I need to write some more short stories. Part of that is my brain reacting against having a novel to write, but mostly it's because I have only a few stories still circulating. When they're gone, I won't have anything to potentially be published. I understand now why you see a lot of certain authors in the magazines for a while and then they disappear. There's never enough time to write all you want to write. Selling stories is nice, but you have to keep writing more to fill the gaps.

#

Sunday was a nice day. Steph and I got up at a reasonable time for a Sunday (8 a.m.) and went in to town to do some clothes shopping and write. Steph was more productive than me. I stared at a blank page and she wrote. Got back at about 2 then took Nika for a walk down into the forest. We got caught in a wild hailstorm ten minutes in, but it was gone again ten minutes later. Nika hated the hail and tried to retreat from it. I had to shelter her. Sometimes I wonder who's alpha in this family.

We got back exhausted then just hung out and did a bit more writing for the rest of the day.

This morning we made it into town for our pre-work writing session, and I managed a scene in the new novel. Tomorrow we have to make the pre-work even earlier as Steph has to start work at 9. (I've been getting to work at 9:20-9:25 these last few days.) That means getting up before 6 a.m. Unnatural and unhealthy, no doubt, but we'll manage it.