ARE WE THERE YET?

So you get the mojo happening, well a flicker of mojo...perhaps a mojette...you get writing. You feel inspired, you feel there is a story to tell...you are actually...wait for it...enjoying yourself. And you write and you write and you write...

Before you know it, this little children's story has gone on and on and you are left wondering 'where the hell do I stop?'

Knitting is easy. You get a pattern, use the correct needles and wool and begin. It takes you step by step until you stop..and heh presto, something is completed. After a while you can begin to twist it up, use differing needles and wools, alter patterns within the pattern itself. But you always know when it's finished.

Cooking is the same. A new recipe is always followed faithfully. Soon though you add your own tweaks...add some rosemary or perhaps throw in some mushrooms. Flavour with lemon instead of vanilla. Once again you know when it is finished.

A garden is a bit different again. It usually starts off like this, some blank earth beneath the bottom water tank. You dig, add compost, dig some more, plant and mulch. And wait for them to do their thing.

When it comes to raking the autumn leaves. You begin. Bucket load after bucket load. When there are no more...you stop.

So how long is a short story?

How many words is a novel?

How long is a children's chapter book?

When do I stop?

The obvious answer is when the story is told.

Easier said then done. The story has to include this, and then this character pops in but of course is NECESSARY because of the conflict with the main protagonist.

Then this HAS to happen- because it helps diffuse the whole situation (but this is just a red herring, in fact this will lead to the final conflict).

Then this conversation has to be written because it is SO FUNNY.

This setting has to be added, because without this then the FUNNY ACCIDENT couldn't occur.

Then....

Yep, so much easier said than done. Perhaps if I had planned the whole thing, chapter by chapter, in minute detail then I would know definitely where the story was headed and when I could finish.

But we all know this isn't me. I don't write that way (doubt I even think that way).

So I will push on. Add this and that, perhaps the other as well. Then when I do finish and put in those classic words

THE END 

we all know that of course it isn't the end. Only the beginning.

Because then we edit, and rejig...and edit some more...then we rewrite...then edit...then put away for a few months.

Take it out again, rejig....rewrite the whole first three chapters....kill a character...change point of view...then edit...polish....etc etc.

I think it will be like my garden...continual work in progress.

Vicki