Mucking Up The Works

I just hit the part in my novel where my outline gets a little fuzzy. So I forced myself to sit down and write it anyway, even though I am not sure what exactly is going to happen in the scene, and I come to realized—a lot of stuff is going on.

And a lot more needs still to happen.

I’m afraid that this is not one novel, but two. Yipes. Did I bite off more than I can chew? All of a sudden, I have an underground movement of the worker class, some new characters that are important, although they may be blamed for a murder and executed, a new and different hidden society in the woods, and perhaps a needed pov from the powers that be.

Worse, none of these things have even been hinted at in my story as it stands now—at 353 pages.

What do I do? Do I just keep writing? Just keep moving forward until the loose ends are tied up? Do I go back into the already written text and add the parts that need to be there? I don’t actually want to do that one, because that requires I read the story and I haven’t yet. Don’t want to. Not yet.

And I really don’t want to let the internal editor in yet.

So I suppose the answer to my dilemma is to just keep writing. Not worry about what’s missing or how long the story might go. Actually, there’s something enjoyable about writing when you aren’t sure exactly what is supposed to happen next. Surprising things occur.

Okay. Back to work. Anxiety gets swept back under the rug. Editor goes back under the rock. Back to being a slave to the word count—even if it’s not as harsh a task master as it was last month.

Onward.