Rough draft: check

Been a bit quiet here, I know. Sorry 'bout that. Good news is I finished the rough draft of Charlie #3. Finished for me means everything but the last two chapters. I never write them until I'm in the revision/polish stage. A couple reasons for that:

My rough drafts are like long, messy outlines. Complete chapters, chapters with a couple sentences, notes to write this scene or that scene. I skip a lot of description and research stuff as well. Word count for this rough draft is 50,000 words. I'm right on target. :-)

As I begin to go through, flesh out, write those scenes I skipped over, etc... it'll grow into what it should. No worries there. I like writing this way. It allows me to see things from a 'skeletal' perspective. And then I have all my other things like character growths/relationships/sub plots that I begin to weave through the bones.

Those final chapters get written when I have all my arcs figured out and I know where everything and everyone is going. But, I like leaving them open/undone while I work, that way my brain isn't stuck on any certain ending... Everything can come together naturally without being forced into some preconceived notion that I can't let go of. (That being said, I do sometimes have an idea for a cool ending. If I do, I just let it simmer and see if the rest of the book will mesh with what I have in mind or not. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.)

I have a *lot* of work to do now (way more than what it took to write the rough draft). But this is my favorite part -- the crafting, molding, shaping... Love it! This is when I really feel like a creator. The rough draft part is more like regurgitating a big blob of clay that has very little shape or interest.

Totally glad I'm done that part!!