Will probably use much of November to figure out what the story needs next, while working on other projects at the same time. I’m already seeing a glimmer of how I need to restructure it–of the this-piece-can-move-here, and this-one-there, and this-one-should-be-pulled-up-and-brought-into-sharper-focus, and I-no-longer-need-this, and I’d-better-add-that variety. I have a notebook in which I’m scribbling notes as I think, think, think. There’s also one major question I expected to have an answer to by the end of the draft, that I don’t yet. Scribble, scribble, scribble. Brainstorming is your friend. And rewriting is much more than half the work.
That this mess of ideas and tensions and characters and prose will become a coherent book, just as so many other projects have, is something that continues to amaze me.