Yes, I know it’s a couple weeks until November officially starts, but I love the writing season. I’m a plotter, so I’m working on that lovely outline and seeing what it is that’s happening there. I finally feel like I’ve untangled most of the pieces of that novel that was actually two novels in one big draft.

Silly me, but I didn’t see it until later. I had a different idea in my head than how it actually went.

My husband asked why I didn’t just leave it as two novels and “pull a Tolkien”. I’m not sure he understood that Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings saga is really just one novel and he cut it into three parts because no one wanted to publish a book that large at that time. That it became three pieces because of the limits of physical books. It’s a massive story that spans a lot of words, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually 3 books even if people cut it that way in paper books or movies or anything else.

The great part is the characters have taken on lives of their own, and they’ve found reasons to go do the things that happen. Mostly – I know a few of those events will change because they’ve been split into their proper books. I’m excited to see what that looks like, so I’ll be starting that this week.

I know I still have a couple places where I’m struggling to put the pieces in the outline. But I know where they are and what’s happening to them around it- it’s just a few wrinkles to smooth out. Usually a mind-map works, finding the way to get through in several different ways. I’ve been questioning all of the things that happen and seeing if there’s a better way to make it work.

Writing novels. It’s definitely a job. Luckily I love it.