When I was a child golf balls were like treasure. I didn't live near a golf course nor did my dad play golf though I think he'd have liked to. But I remembering finding and being fascinated by golf balls mostly because the first one I came across was a broken one.
Inside it was a lot of very tightly wound together rubber bands - like this rubber band ball here. I couldn't find a picture of my vintage golf ball so this link to purchase a rubber band ball will have to do. Golf balls are obviously filled with a lot more high performance stuff nowadays.
The old fashioned rubber band filling is how I imagine the middle of my story.
In the first six or seven chapters, which may turn out to be 12 or 13 chapters, I set in motion springy plot threads full of potential and did my best to fit them into my story casing - the pitted white golf ball shell and to stop them pinging off in random directions.
However when you're stuck for words on the 1667 words a day pantsing schedule, a ping in a random direction is quite useful. Sometimes it lands in the dog's bowl or should I say The Publisher's bowl and is a soggy dead end. But sometimes it sails right through a door of a wonderful possibilities and even better to answers to questions that have popped up along the way. Sometimes you have to write rubbish to find the story on the other side of the heap.
Anyway that's the sort of last week or so I've been having with The Wonder Girls 2. Being at the beginning of the middle is a bit like still being at the beginning. You can kid yourself that you still are at the beginning but at the middle of the middle and the end of the middle, not so much. You have to sort out the threads and pick those that will tie easily without seeming too contrived. I'm after the perfect bow here, which is a cue for a random clip from Arthur Christmas.
I think I've sifted the gold from the silt - ooh another metaphor and a have a few good threads to tie up. I'm still enjoying it. I hope that after however many drafts it needs to make it publishable, you will too.
I'm at 40,019 words, which is still on track. I just have to make sure 'the good end happily and the bad unhappily for that is what fiction means' - thank you Oscar! So from now on, if I've picked the right threads, it should be a glorious slide into a deeply satisfying warm pool with a big splash at the end.
And I have 6 days to make that happen.
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