Happy Gate Night!

The Halloween Contest officially ends at midnight tonight, central time. Good luck to everyone!

It's been quite some time since I've blogged. There's been a lot of real life crap. If it weren't for real life, I'd have ten novels written by now. Stupid real life...

So I finally finished the rewrite. Well, it turned out to be more of a complete re-haul. While rewriting in the third person, I realized a couple of chapters needed to be split into two chapters. Before, I was rewriting 9 chapters. I ended up with 11 chapters. *wipes brow*

Here are some things I've learned from all of this:

1 - Sometimes no matter which main character I choose, they just won't see everything enough in order to tell the whole story, making the story sound rather amaturish.

2 - Allowing the story to develop a personality of its own is very important. I'll do whatever the story needs, but if the story itself is horrifically underdeveloped, the story can't tell what it needs, so I won't know either.

3 - I really enjoy playing narrator, more so than allowing a character to play narrator. I guess I'm selfish that way *shrugs*

4 - Any concerns I had before about showing the perspectives from other characters, is now gone. Writing in the third person has allowed me to show so much more of the story and properly show each character in all their glory (get your mind out of the gutter, I'm not writing erotica... this time).

5 - I'm officially in love with this story.

6 - Last but not least, that plowing technique does not work for me. At all. Maybe it works well for other authors, but not me. I need to write at my own pace no matter how slow or fast that may be. As it is, I do naturally write fast, so that plowing thing really was overkill for me. It just wasn't needed. While it is important to just keep writing until the story is finished and not worry too much about tiny details, at the same time, there's a lot to be said for taking as much time as I need. Less pressure, more thought, better story.

Tomorrow, I'll announce the winners of the Halloween Contest and also announce some details about the next contest.

Enjoy Gate Night everyone!