NaNoWriMo is finished for another year. I’m pleased to say that I wrote a little over 60,000 words! And I managed to finally get that first draft completed. Whew!
So, what’s next? If you found yourself in a groove, writing every day, do you miss it? I know I do. It felt odd being between projects. I could dive right in on the major revisions I know I need to do on The Lazarus Gambit, but I really think that would be a mistake. Instead, I’ve made a lot of notes–things I know need to be fixed right off the bat–and I’ve set the book aside. I’ve promised myself I won’t look at it for at least a month, maybe longer. I need to get some distance from it, after having lived in its world so intimately for so long, but especially in November.
I took a week off. Yay me! I needed to reconnect with my amazing husband and with life in general. It was weird, though. For the first couple of days, it was like the steampunk world of the book was superimposed over the real world. We’d go out to run errands and my imagination would change regular streetlights to gaslights and cars to steamers or aether-cars. I fully expected to see airships floating by overhead. Yeah, I can get a bit obsessed. Thankfully, that didn’t last!
I’ve started a new project. It’s an idea that’s been percolating for over a year now, but all I had were the Hero and Heroine, the basic idea for the setting, and the first scene. I spent some time during the last few days fleshing all those out to see if I really had a premise I could expand into a 90,000+ word novel, and I believe I do. I now have the supporting characters, the bones of a plot–including the beginning and the climax–and a good start on the backstory.
I can’t wait to start writing!