don't dream it's over

My Nano novel is now finished. It’s been officially validated at 50, 152 words. That’s it. Phew.

Well. I say finished, but actually it really just stops. There has been absolutely no plot resolution of any kind and all of the various threads that I have laboriously constructed have been left swinging in the breeze. As of now, I have no intention of finishing off the story. Nor do I intend to go back and churn through some of the mountains dreadful writing and flimsy plotting that I know is in there.

The fact that the ‘finished novel’ contains the following piece of dialogue, I think it says it all:

“Yes Gwilym. Do try to keep up. These are the rats that I was telling you about, the ones that I met this afternoon”.
“The same rats you met this afternoon?”
“Yes”
“Doesn’t that strike you as a touch unbelievable? Of all the rats that must live in York, that we bump into the same two that you happen to have met this afternoon?”
John thought for a moment. “Yes, I suppose it does, but here they are. What can you do?”

I think the bones of a story are in there somewhere, and I think that with some work it could maybe be turned into something. Right now though, I just can’t be arsed to go back and do the editing and re-working that would be necessary to turn it into something usable. It’s time to take a break.

I’m keeping it though – perhaps in a folder marked “juvenalia”. One day, perhaps, I will return to it and find out what happens.

Maybe.

I do like that talking raven though. He's called Arthur.