A Never Ending Journey

One of the active stories I’m working on is an old one.

The main character can be traced all the way back to high school days, when my best friend came up and a cool character and a neat setting.

That story was never finished, but it did provide the basis not only for several different characters (see previous post), but countless story ideas, as well. In an effort to find the right combination of setting, events and characters, I have considered just about everything. Romance. Mystery. Contemporary. Cozy. First person. Third person. Male lead. Female lead. I think the only things I haven’t considered are an animal story and a science fiction story.

The story I am currently working most actively on is one of those many possibilities.

Parting Gifts came into being May 11, 1996 after a series of false starts for characters and false starts for settings. I’ve worked on it periodically since then but picked it up again in early June with the idea of finishing the thing this summer. Warm up for National Novel Writing Month, you could say.

It’s a somewhat contemplative work set in the Flint Hills and I’ve actually passed through or visited some of the locales I write about and experienced some of the weather extremes. That always makes writing easier.

This particular story has the end in sight. In fact, the ending was one of the first scenes I wrote way back when, so what I’m doing now is working my way from the end of the beginning to the beginning of the end and hoping, somewhere in the 80,000 to 100,000 word range, the two will meet!

How’s that for a plan?

The lead character in this story is probably about as close to that original character as I will come. I have described him as “…honest and upright…but [with] a life experience or two that has completely derailed him”.

Parting Gifts is about his efforts to run away from himself and God and God’s efforts to bring him back into the fold.

I mentioned National Novel Writing Month in a previous paragraph. I am using Parting Gifts as a practice run that hopefully will not turn into a dry run. As per the rules, I am making every effort to just write, write, write and to keep from editing, editing, editing. That’s hard! Usually, I begin each writing day by reading over what was written the day before, making whatever minor changes I find (omitted words, misspelled words, poorly written sentences, etc.). That gets me warmed up and headed in the right direction for new writing.

Now, I’m not even doing that, but just starting out cold every day and essentially sprinting for 1,000 words. Write whatever dialog, description and whatever else comes to mind without worrying about how well it goes together.

I’m not sure I like that.

I am sure I like the way that word count is increasing, though! I could definitely get used to that!