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Fleshing Out The Skeletons

46,189…that’s the number of words on last count. Gosh, I thought I would have reached at least a gazzilion words by now!!! And I am having this thing with halting my writing for fear that it sounds, reads, looks, imagina-ted weird. Oh, did I tell you already? Well, apparently not. You see, on my computer, there’s this secret folder protected by some obscure password that only I can access. Inside this folder lies, on last count, 60+ files and inside these files lies skeletons. Hee hee….got ya there. Skeletons as in skeletons of a book lah! I don’t know about you but even when I have to write a short article or press release, I make it a habit to map it out with a skeleton, albeit in point form. Using this point form as a guidance, I would then flesh out the article. In this case, the skeletons in the secret folder are skeletons of unfinished books that I chickened out of, got bored of, thought nothing of or thought was complete rubbish. One sunny Sunday afternoon, after feeding my kids Oreos, I picked one of the skeletons up and decided to see if I could continue the story and lo’ and behold, I could! So, I’m finally going to finish writing a book, damn it! How many years has it been ah? If it can take me a month to write 50,000 for Nanowrimo which I completed two years back, I can bloody complete ONE SINGLE BOOK in six months. But on last count, I am still crawling around the 46,189 figure. Typically, a novel would have somewhere between 80,000 to 100,000 words. So….that means I am half-way there, doesn’t it? Hhhmmmm….OK, now that I put it that way, it doesn’t sound so bad after all. Well, once I get over this dilemma of whether to kill the bloody best-friend or crazy drunken neighbor who bears a scary resemblance to Cruella de’Ville of 101 Dalmatians, I’ll trudge along with the journey and see what kind of a story I can finish hor?

Comments

Krista Goon said…
Haha, speaking of skeletons like that. I have a lot of those too. I have unfinished stories. Great beginnings but sadly, my steamer ran out of steam at 1/3 of the way. I am rooting for you - just as I am rooting for myself to blardy damn finish the stories. But got once or twice when I just got this madness and started writing a story from start to finish (short story la) and then felt thoroughly satisfied. Moments like that - hmm, very rare. But pleasurable!
Marsha Maung said…
maya, ya lor. The feeling damn shiok even if at the end of the day, the story sucks to high heaven, the character is inconsistent, you forgot to continue writing about the cleaning lady or it sounds like two short stories in one book...whatever....

the point is FINISH! :-)

When I finished Nanowrimo, I almost pengsan from happiness to see the 'progress' bar show that I finish the blardie race! It was like wwo hoo, yee hee!

and I read the story again....wow, that's a load of rubbish!!!

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