When I decided to take a break from the novel I was in the middle of, I knew it might be difficult to pick it up again. It wasn’t. Turns out I had written much more of the beginning and the middle than I thought I had. And it wasn’t as rough as I expected. But, I don’t have the ending. And I usually know the ending when I start a book. It sometimes changes, but I always have some idea where I’m going.
This novel is the fifth in a series that I only intended to have three books. But I like writing about Paris and two women with much in common if they can see past their differences to form a solid friendship. The difficulty is where to end each novel so that it is a complete book while moving the series along. I do know the end of the entire series, so I know where I’m headed. But there are many surprises along the way.
Like with most things, I just need to get started. It’s tempting to go back a few chapters and polish them, but what I really need is to figure out what happens at the end, and then how to get there and outline that at a high level. Problem is, I have a lot of low-level details even in the later chapters that may not fit.
After trying to start on the laptop, I decided to use two half-filled journaling notebooks that I had. I didn’t want to use them for journaling since they were from over a decade ago, so I couldn’t place them in order if I used them for journaling, but writing down plot ideas and chapter goals weren’t something that I need to save in order for later. So I have one for Miriam and one for Estelle. I can write outside, or without having the computer nearby. It does help to step back from the laptop occasionally. I find that I can think of conflict easier with a pen in hand, although I sometimes outline just the bare bones of it.