Middle march

I've done a proper count-up of all the words of the novel I've written so far, and it comes to just a notch over 45,000. (Today's word count: not much, cups of coffee: too many, what's playing: a chorus of 'woo-hoo's in my head). I spent a happy morning quilting all my patches of story together, and I'm feeling optimistic. I would like to do some work on Saturday, though - it's unlikely that I'll write more than 3,000 words tomorrow (at a generous estimate), and I would love to hit 50,000 by the end of the week. For morale's sake.

I'm noticing that the beginning and the end of the book are coming together far more easily in my head than the middle. The middle is hard. At the beginning of the book I can merrily romp around introducing all kinds of characters and themes, forgetting that I'll have to follow them through at some point. At the end of the book I can build the drama up to a climax, make everything exciting and fast-paced. The middle is where I need to actually slow down, develop characters and themes (while still moving the plot along at a steady clip) and make the book substantial. Therefore it is hard, and I am using my time-honoured technique for dealing with things that are hard. Actually, two of my time-honoured techniques. The first one is avoidance. Simple. The second one is to close my eyes, put my head down and run blindly and recklessly through it until the danger is past. They both have drawbacks. In the first scenario, the words simply don't get written and gaping holes are left in the story. In the second, I churn out words at a remarkable pace without giving them the time and attention they deserve.

Filling in the middle is tomorrow's job, and the weekend's job. Wish me luck. Please.