Out of the Desert - Into the Path

I have a sort of descriptive title for this year's NaNo novel, The Pathbreaker Agent. I think it has a nice sort of double meaning which becomes apparent as the story unfolds. This book is more about the transformation and less about the action that causes the transformation than the other books I've written. This pleases me because it is the transformation that interests me most in real life – that process of change and how the internal changes are the true cause of all change. Sure, things happen but nothing happens if you don't experience it with your core. Then that experience just sloughs off. That's the difference between assimilating and accommodating.

This has been the most interesting year yet. I've discovered two secrets of the process that can either keep me going or block me. Nice discoveries and yet this knowledge hasn't kept me from procrastinating. As usual, I find myself having to justify doing something that I enjoy and making it hard to get started.

The secrets – a) staying IN the story not outside it, and b) staying emotionally connected with the characters – keep me going once I start. I'm sure I was doing this in the previous NaNos, but this year I have an awareness of those tools. The discovery of new tools is just one of the many reasons why I enjoy writing fiction.

Yes, it is all about me, folks!