Now Leaving Texas...

Remember that journey through "the big Middle" I started a while back? The part a fellow writer (Laraine Herring) compared to driving through the state of Texas? The part I thought could take several months? I believe that I crossed the border today!

Sure, I may have to drive back through a few of the smaller towns, get a closer look at the scenery, and explore a few more side roads to fill in any remaining gaps. And yes, the bridge was out in Crisis City (not quite ready to write that scene yet), so I took a detour for now and vowed to come back in a few days or weeks. But I have officially passed from writing the middle section of the book into writing the final quarter.

In writer's terms, there is a threshold that happens after a major energy marker in the plot. One such threshold occurs after the crisis happens. It marks the end of the middle -- or the beginning of the end. Over the past couple of days, I wrote several of those threshold scenes in which Gabby reflects on what has happened, evaluates her choices, and gathers the resources she will need to make it to the climax and successfully transform. In other words, she has to take everything apart in order to put the pieces of herself back together again.

I suspected it was time to go there when I hit a pocket of resistance on Thursday night and had to fight for every word that made it on to the page. So on Friday morning, I reassessed my own situation and realized that yes, it was time to take another leap -- right into the novel's crisis. Or maybe directly to the resulting fallout.

Strangely, in the midst of all this, I couldn't help but notice the parallels between where Gabby is finding herself at this point in the novel and where the Republican party found itself after the election (a crisis of sorts for them) this week. And of course, what do they (Gabby and the Republicans) do first? Blame everyone but themeselves for what has happened...

The difference is, I get to have some say in Gabby's ultimate transformation. Too bad real life narratives are a bit harder to influence.

So long, for now, Texas!

(NaNoWriMo word count at the end of day 10? 19,607 words.  Yee-haw!)