Every now and then, when you're working on something, sometimes you gotta know when it's best to try and stop fixing it and start back at square one. After effectively dragging my feet on a novel and trying about 8 different openings, and getting about 260ish pages (given the approximate 350 words a page) with a story setup little different from "and then this happened", I've decided to just take the lessons learned and start the first draft from page 1. I am making it my belated New Year's resolution to have a first draft done by the end of the year, so that my next resolution can be to edit it into a second draft that should be pretty close to the final cut. So, if I can sit down and write about 2 pages worth of material (give or take 700 words a day), I'll have a 500 page novel by the end of the year. Of course, it might be less than that given my new narrative setup, but that gives me a goal to shoot for.

It can actually be quite a relief to start with a clean slate, especially when writing. That, and the fact that stepping away from a project can really free your mind to think outside the box, which is what practically saved this novel from obscurity in the first place. The next part will be figuring out the events of the second half of the book and actually giving myself the discipline to actually write at least 2 full pages of reaonable material each day. Let's see, maybe getting this done and potentially published, no matter how shallow the distribution, will give me some credibility as a writer. That should be motivation enough to get me off my lethargic butt.

But I know now where this journey begins, who's traveling along the road, and where the journey ends. Now I just need to take that journey and see where the road bends. I've got my 10 foot pole, my 50 feet of rope, and a torch. Wish me luck, as I'm afraid I'm going to need it.