After Nanowrimo, a rest before editing

For me the issue wasn't generating the 50,000 words. I had those, in half a dozen half-drafts and numerous folders, each containing a mishmash of scenes. The task I set myself to do under the discipline of Nanowrimo, the annual National Novel Writing Month, was to herd those words into a coherent whole.

I had to look at my separate story threads and weave them together in a way that would generate interest and make sense for the reader. With a month of steady work behind me, I verified my count late yesterday evening: one coherent draft of 62,318 words. Yay!!!

As I saved copies of that draft, I told myself I'd take a week off writing. But I woke up this morning with more scenes. Yesterday I knew that certain scenes were insufficiently woven into the plot, and this morning I woke up with ideas for scenes that would fix that.

Last night, I went to bed thinking I wouldn't have to work on the novel for a week, and could relax into other writing projects. But I woke with a few heretofore missing plot elements that motivate Rose, as they combine to test her to the limit of her resiliency.

It seems my draft is unfinished after all. Now I must write those scenes and figure out where they fit in. This step at least is certain, for which I am thankful. The challenge of writing a novel is that there is no map. Many experienced writers have said it: for each new work, that map must be created from scratch.

After incorporating these new scenes, I will put the draft away for awhile. A little bit of distance will allow me to return to it fresh. I'll try to imagine that someone else has written it, that I am reading with an eye to editing.

The first stage of revision will mean looking at the story scene by scene, and moving scenes around to make sure they are presented in the best possible order. The goal here is to create and maintain reader interest.

Once this is done, I will read the whole draft aloud to myself to make sure it sounds right. Anything that jars the ear will have to be examined and altered as I attend to the music and rhythm of my words and sentences.

When I come to the final edit, I will look at the whole story sentence by sentence. Every word and every punctuation mark must earn its place. Anything that is not essential will be cut. After this, the novel will be ready to offer to a trusted first reader for feedback.

Nanowrimo is fantastic, because writers need deadlines. Getting my first complete rough draft together this past month has emboldened me to hope I can have a final draft done before the Surrey Writers' International Conference in October 2013.

There is a profound symmetry about the timing. Though I finished The Writer"s Studio at SFU a year ago, Wednesday evening is the formal grad ceremony for our cohort. I have a novel drafted; I am truly a writer now.