>Novel in Progress

>I’m working on a novel. (I know: Who isn’t?) I’ve just published a collection of short stories, my agent is working to sell a novel-in-stories (or so I insist on calling it; it may just be another collection of linked stories), and I’ve got a novel languishing in a drawer that one day I would like revisit, now that I sort of know what I’m doing. In the meantime, though, I’m working on a shortish novel that has themes and characters that attract me. I’ve given myself a deadline of the end of the year to finish it, and I think I can meet that deadline. It won’t be easy.

Actually, I have a full draft finished, and except for some wrinkles that have come to me that I want to apply to the ending, the draft follows the basic plot that I’m still working with. What’s changing drastically, though, is voice–I’m going from a single narrator to three, although the original third person narrator continues to provide the focus for the book. The challenge now is to layer in my themes and these additional voices.

I don’t want to say anything about plot at this point, or characters or setting for that matter. Maybe I’ll have more to say as I get closer to the end.