Yesterday was a momentous writing day for me. I passed the 50,000 work mark in NaNoWriMo 2015. which means that I am supposedly a winner. This meant that I got to tweet:

I reached 50,675 words to become a #NaNoWinner2015 with my draft of Fates Maelstrom – and more words remain out there.

Of course, this is just a stepping stone to the next phase of a long but exciting process with “Fates Maelstrom“. First, I have to finish this draft, and I estimate that it will come out at around 105,000. [(That’s the amount written so far + the amount in draft 1.a)

Before anyone accuses me of cheating, I haven’t  copied and pasted my first attempt into this one. That first draft was set on Dartmoor not in Snowdonia, had a different main protagonist, and the plotline was… different.

I used that old draft to create an outline, and then rewrote the scenes, or new scenes, as if that original was destroyed. Think Robert Louis Stevenson burning “Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” to avoid salvaging it after his wife’s comments. Except in my case, my wife liked the first draft, most of the research – such as family trees – got used, and the original hasn’t been burnt – yet.

Now comes the interesting part. I made a few changes as I went along. The original antagonist was one of three POVs, but I’ve dropped his maniacal thoughts. Result – more suspicions abound surrounding the other characters. Plus one of the characters has now seduced the wrong woman – in fact, the main detective. And a chase scene appeared that was never there, but it worked – as I was writing it. Where did that escape vehicle come from?

So today, I’m having to re-think where the plot is going… especially as I’ve decided to kill someone else. Supposedly, that can help if the book is sagging – or the writer. The daily word count will dip, but I have some great ideas brewing.

See you all in December.

P.S. It also gives me time to write next week’s interview with Detective Sergeant Mal Sumnor of the North Wales Police. He keeps thinking that he’s solved the case, but I believe in keeping him employed. Poor love.