Beyond November

If you've seen my NaNoWriMo profile, it's not much of a secret that I didn't reach my goal of 80K, but that's all right. I almost reach 60K which isn't bad. I really needed to read so I put things down for a couple of weeks and chilled. Now I'm back to the grindstone though.

I sat down to write just 1,000 words this morning and ended up with 3,000, which is fine by me. My main character, Daisy, has grown a lot since the beginning of the novel and is finally realizing a few things. It's still hard for her and there's still stuff she has to get past, but she's worked through one big thing already.

I have to admit that I'm surprised she overcame this thing so soon but I'm just letting her take me where she will. That kind of sounds funny, doesn't it? I mean, I'm the writer, I get to choose where so goes, right? Logic would dictate that but art has a life of its own. And when your in tune with it, you don't ask yourself where you're going next, you ask yourself what she/he sees and what happens to them. Then you let that event take you where it may.

I'm nearing the end of Daisy's journey but I'm starting to realize that her mom has a journey of her own. How do I potentially end a novel when that is still there? But I've been thinking about this all morning. A revelation came to light and my first thought was, "I don't want to write that." Moms are supposed to love their children unconditionally. But you know sometimes when you see people say things to their kids or just kids in general and you think, "You don't say that to them."? It ends up that Daisy's mom is one of those people.

It's kind of sad but I'm coming to realize that Daisy's mom may not get the ending I want because Daisy, in the end, is making more progress than her. Her mother's progress is a façade. She's made herself believe she's made more progress than she really has. And, because of that, Daisy is going to reach the end of her journey first.

But her mom just might come around before the end. I'm interested to see how that works out. Again, I know that sounds a bit weird, but remember I'm writing this as I go.