Hello, my friends and the occasional relative!

Writing a novel is often a question of timing and willpower. I’m at that cross-roads right now.

I’ve been putting together the collage of pieces and the opening is taking firmer shape with later chronology tightening. I’m beginning to do pieces of connective writing and elaboration. My pre-story timeline of the war that leads to the events of my novel is being filled in by necessity to match the text, and the two things are improving each other.

Long in the past (this blog does circle the same topics through time, I am nothing if not obsessive), I talked about writing as a process of climbing successive mountains, only to find another higher mountain ahead of you. I link it to a song by Dio most of the time because a line in his song encapsulates the process perfectly: “Every time I climbed the mountain, and it turned into a hill, I promised me that I’d move on, and I will.” I think of it more as a present tense version of the sentiment, but let’s not split hairs any more than I have just done!

This is the bloody minded willpower needed to finish a novel. I am cresting ridgelines on the mountain of collage assembly, and seeing the mountain continue to rise before me. I know that once I climb this mountain it will shrink beneath my feet, and a new mountain will appear: the mountain of writing the last third, and beyond it the mountain of ensuring all my plot, theme, character objectives have been met. All while trying to keeping track of where the reader will be as they turn each page. The mountain of editing lies in the misty distance, chuckling at my puny present efforts.

You need willpower to forge on. Small steps each day on the long uphill road.

What of timing? Well, I want this book out by next fall. That’s looking a difficult ask, but I woke up this morning and reminded myself that I have always been a creature of productivity when faced with deadlines. The trick I have to perform now, is to make my mountains into deadlines in order to satisfy my overall desire for the timing of book release.

Wish me luck!