New Year | Graphomaniac – A. Elizabeth West

Day 7.

Word count –

1,958!

I finished a new scene, a pivot point before the third act. Not only that, but there are things that were vaguely contradictory that are now beginning to work themselves out.

In a book where there are speculative elements, your world rules have to be very clear in order to allow suspension of disbelief. You must set them up in the beginning, and not deviate from them. It doesn’t matter how outlandish the world rules are. If you present them as truth, and keep to them, the reader will be able to accept what happens in the story in the context of those rules.

You’re just dying to know what this story is about, aren’t you? I don’t dare divulge it at this point. Maybe once it’s finished and I start querying it.

If I told you, I’d have to kill you.

Image: Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Since I started NaNo, and it actually seems to be working, I have come up with a plan. If I can finish this book by the end of the month, and hoping like hell that even worse things don’t happen in my life (pleez no moar!), then I can get the first edit done by February. If all goes well, I can quite possibly have it ready to query by the time spring rolls around.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PROMISE ME YOU WILL NOT QUERY A NANO BOOK WITHOUT EDITING!

Sorry, but so many agency screeners get hit by crappy first drafts, and in January, New Year’s resolutions (“I’m gonna dust off that old thing and send it in this year!”), or so I’m told. You really should be presenting no less than your best, polished work.

Time to go watch X-Files reruns for the evening. Later.