Something very odd happened last night - I accidentally finished my current novel. That's one I'm writing, not one I'm reading. I'm not sure how you'd accidentally finish reading a novel. Although you may be wondering how you accidentally finish a novel. Well, to be honest, so am I.I was writing away, having just started a new chapter, and then suddenly a paragraph turned up that coalesced the essence of the story and a little voice in my head said "You should probably stop there."So I have, stopped that is, for the moment at least. I'm not sure it really is the end, but I need to work out why the little voice thinks it is. If it is the end then there's some even more editing than I had originally planned since quite a lot of my plot remains unwritten (hinted at but not resolved!).One of my fellow Wordwatchers, Julian said after critiquing the first 90K "You seem to be 2/3rds the way through your word count but only halfway through your plot". These, it would seem, were rather prophetic words.Feeling rather empty at the moment, I have lived with these characters for quite some time and suddenly not being involved in their most intimate of moments is rather disconcerting. Perhaps they're living their lives without me?I have an idea of how to resolve all of this, and a severe pruning in the edit will help enormously. In the meantime I'm going to have a few days rest (possibly, the urge to write is still there!) and then write out where I thought the story should end, just in case it turns out I need it.When I know more, I shall share it with you.John
On reflection...
Due to circumstances beyond my control I actually missed last night's WW meeting. It's a genuinely sad moment. The Wordwatchers meetings are the only time I feel like "John the Writer" - three precious hours a month where I really do feel like a writer, not not just a bloke sat at a keyboard typing in stuff that may or may not ever be read. Chris was very proficient with the minutes - though he teasingly changed my texted in confessional from 18,000 words this month to just 1,800 (to see if I was paying attention). Oh how I laughed... not...Amazing that this was Wordwatchers 133rd meeting, the first of our 12th year and would have been my own personal anniversary too, 5 years a member of possibly the greatest collection of writers and friends that the world (mostly) doesn't know about yet. (The beacon of hope for the rest of us is of course the brilliant Charlotte Betts and of course our very own (now Alumni member) Katherine Webb). Both these amazing ladies took the traditional route to publishing, but we're also hoping for great things from our Indie published John Potter and there's lots of good stuff round the corner for Abbie too, who at least has an agent and has the most amazing dedication to her art and appears to be able to produce a novel faster than I've known some people draw up a shopping list. So Abbie already has a couple of novels prepped and waiting to go.In fact, everybody seems to be pretty much cracking on now and reading the flurry of post meeting emails, I clearly missed out on a fantastically energized meeting.Me, I'll be really pleased when Endless Possibilities is finished and that's mainly because of the encouragement from within Wordwatchers who read (and critiqued) the first 100K and insisted that I finish just so they can find out what happens to the main characters. And if I'm honest, that's pretty much all the incentive I really need.(This blog originally started as a shorter musing on Wordwatchers Facebook page and it was Abbie's response to it their that lead to its expansion and subsequent title - thanks Abbie - inspiring as ever)Addendum: The author makes no apology for the rather gushing terms used to describe his fellow Wordwatchers in this blog because it's all true and well deserved - so there!Image: Sura Nualpradid / FreeDigitalPhotos.net