In the Fifteen Minute Novel we have reached Day 150 so I thought it was time to sit down and look at how things are going. As you know, the fifteen minute novel was chosen from a writing prompt that surfaced last year. This is the second year I have set the challenge of writing a novel in fifteen minute chunks. And actually i really enjoy it. It gives me leave to explore an idea that came up while i am still working on other projects and I kind of like the discipline of writing for fifteen minutes on this work every day regardless.
Last year I took the prompt and ran with it. There was no forethought and no planning at all. This year i decided a little planning was in order. I came up with a basic outline consisting of five points along a line to serve as a sort of road map for the year. One of the things I noticed last year was that without a semi established bath before me the story tended to ramble off into side roads and completely lose track of the main story. The five points were my attempt to at least provide a main direction for the tale.
the second thing I noticed was that last year I wanted the story to wrap up when the year ended, so I let myself go down those pathways because I thought the story would otherwise end before the year was out. while I did learn a lot of things i will be using for the main story, this year i gave myself an out. when i reached the end of the tale I could end it and start another one.
That has proven to be interesting. I ran out my storyline when my main character, Anya ran off into the hidden sections of the House of the Star. Since I saw the story continuing, I went ahead and kept writing. Essentially what happened is I wrapped up an extremely rough draft of a book and then instead of putting on the ending I rolled into the sequel. I am okay with that, but it does mean that I am past my outline. i have found myself starting to wander again, so I sat down this weekend and came up with the basic five point outline for the second story and hopefully it will get me through the rest of the year.
So that is the plan with the Fifteen Minute Novel Experiment for 2022 and why it looks like my story kept going past it’s natural end,. When I go back and edit there will be a proper ending added before the second story starts. Over all I am happy with it and am perfectly happy to continue with this until the end of the year.
Ten til Midnight 