completing a novel

Today I finished Penny Angel, a far more subtle book than I first imagined.  Pantsing a novel does that sometimes, but not in a bad way.

Of my novels written on the fly, a few have altered drastically from what I initially envisioned.  The first couple of times it happened I was really thrown for a loop, like what the hey novel, whatcha think you're doing?  Then as those books found endings I hadn't planned, I swallowed my fears (and some pride) and fully embraced writing on the fly.  Not all my books are so, well, ethereal.  Most, okay, more than half are pretty much under my control from the beginning.  But a few slip away, and before I know it, have minds of their own.  Children do the same, and between motherhood and writing I've learned to just let headstrong ones have their way.

Either they'll sink or swim.  So far, I've not lost a kid or a manuscript.

Not to be so nonchalant, but that's really all one can do when the novel starts veering down its own path.  If I tried to impose my will, it wouldn't be pretty.  As it is, Penny Angel fared better for following its heart, subtle and a little lyrical, much easier on the brain than the pounding I had planned.  It's a love story, also a morality tale, spanning over thirty years in sixteen chapters and 76,153 words.  It's a story I concocted earlier this year, then shelved, then hastily dusted off in late October.  Today it's history.

Now my focus is on For God And Country, the second half of NaNo 2011.  I'll get back into that book tomorrow, hoping to wrap it up before Bob goes under the knife.  If all goes well, I should just squeak it in, hopefully hitting 50K before the end of this month.  This has been a weird NaNo, interruptions and such.  Also my first as an indie author; I've been editing the next novel for release, looking forward to that!  So many projects, how I've always been, fingers in assorted pies, some tasty, some needing another ingredient.  I can't keep still, my nature to always have something simmering.  I don't like wasting time, don't like letting moments slip away.  Maybe it's just my age, perspective.  Knowledge that life doesn't last forever; it's precarious and even if I live to be 115, like Chiyono Hasegawa, what has to happen today needs to happen TODAY.  Like finishing Penny Angel, maybe wrapping up the Alvin's Farm iBook edits, we'll see.  A celebratory ice cream will be had as soon as Bob finishes his task, the weekly budget.  I'll do my work, he can do that job.  And tomorrow...

Tomorrow's football.  That's all I need to know for now.