One tall step down... the rest of the book to go

Moments ago, I finished the outline/synopsis/What God Knows for my story. There are some middle parts missing, but considering how I tend to “follow” outlines, that may not be too bad of a thing. I also wrote several more cards for my corkboard. I did more writing today than I thought that I could, and tomorrow I can start writing narrative again. Weirdly, I think I need to get further in my narrative before I can flesh out the corkboard much more, but I can probably add a card or two before putting it on hold.

I admit I’m nervous about writing narrative. The voice of my narrator (now also my main character) is really different from last time, and somehow I’m not sure I’m fully behind it. I think it’s better, but it’s not what I had envisioned it at the onset.

Part of what kept my momentum up during NaNoWriMo was the fact that I was fully engaged in the tone of my story. It was my voice, and I didn’t care overmuch what anyone else thought. Now I’m hoping to make a work that will stand up on its own among other works within the genre, and it sounds really egotistical in my own head to say that.

But if it doesn’t stand up, what’s the point? I mean, you don’t literally “level up” in writing. You get better with practice, to be sure, but your first book needn’t be crap. Look at John Kennedy Toole—he wrote two books ever, and the one he wrote first was published second, and both after his death. A Confederacy of Dunces, the first-published one, won a Pulitzer Prize.

So, just because you aren’t published doesn’t mean you aren’t a good, skilled writer. It does mean that your attempts may require a little more editing/revising than some other authors’. But you can revise and edit it until it, the work itself, is a venerated old guy with a grizzled beard and a grizzled voice, and it speaks with authority when it tells the story that was etched into it over months and weeks and years of hard, hard work.

Anyway. I’m sick and I think I’m rambling and I started this entry over four hours ago and keep getting sidetracked from finishing it. I’m proud of the work I did today, meager as it was, and I hope to do as well or better tomorrow—but we’ll see, because tomorrow has this whole other set of responsibilities, and I imagine I’ll still be sick.

I’m proud of my work. I just wish I could work up the willpower and momentum to work every day. Once I get to narrative stuff, I think I’ll set myself a daily word goal, like in NaNo. We’ll see.

At any rate, now I sleep. See you Friday.