I haven’t written anything since the 6^th of January. Why? Because I got stuck. I knew what scenes needed to come up, but I needed a way to get out of the story, gracefully.

The problem with time travel stories is this: what’s to stop a character after the story is “over” from going back to undo the entire thing and thus negating the entire sequence of events? Since the life of the main character has been presented in anything but chronological sequence, what constitutes an “ending”?

It was a thorny problem, and one I’ve been struggling with. But as it turns out, I left myself an opening way back on day two of NaNoWriMo. I had a somewhat sinister character that was sent back in time to cause havoc and later had her “die” (read: I forgot about her, and when I remembered her, I just had the other characters remark that they hadn’t heard from her in a while, and therefore she must be dead).

Now she gets to the be one who shoots the female lead character and the reason time travel is stopped, all in one fell swoop. It makes more sense in my head than it does written down here for those of you who haven’t read the story. Which is, you know…everyone.

My goal to finish this story was “before the end of January,” and that is looming next Monday. But I think I can do it. I wrote 78,000 words in 30 days. I can write 10,000 in a week. And if not, I can just travel back in time and…wait. I think I’m getting too close to the story.

After this one is over, I have three short stories I’d like to finish and another new one I want to write in its entirety. Two of the four are werewolf stories (not sexy werewolves), another is a comical first-contact story told from the viewpoint of the aliens, and the new one is set in the same universe as my urban fantasy novels Perdition’s Flames and Death Scene, excerpts of which are available at the top of the page, if you so desire. The short will tell the story of how Nick, the main character, came to realize he had magical powers. I can’t wait to start it, which means I have to hunker down and get Killing Time done.

But right now, I’m off to my regular Tuesday night critique session with the other Fountain Pen members.

Project working title: Killing Time New words: 1,938 Current total words: 81,555 Goal: 100,000

Reason for stopping: Lunch was over.

Notes:

1. As I said above, I finally found how to “get out gracefully.” This is, after all, a story about time travel. How do you exit that gracefully, and make sure the story is over when it’s over?
2. Made copious notes on how to fill out this rediscovered character and make her be the fall guy (gal?) that is the catalyst for the climax of the story.