Detour!

The sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach I get when I'm driving somewhere new, following my GPS's ridiculous directions and I see the- all too familiar- orange "DETOUR AHEAD" sign is the same feeling I get while writing when I notice my novel isn't going the way I thought it would.

I make the same groaning noise I do when I'm in my car and think to myself, "Great, now I have to go way out of my way to get to where I want to be." I look at the clock and sigh. "This is going to take a while."

I can even hear the calm, yet ever annoying "Make a legal U-Turn if possible" female voice of my GPS telling me to turn and drive away from that detour sign as fast as possible. Let's face it, there's never a legal U-Turn lane when you want one, so I drive on through and follow the detour and let it whisk me away.

I find when writing, it is often prudent to follow the detours. Especially with the way I write; simple plot outlines, and then follow my fingers wherever they lead me, detours are often (like in reality) caused by improvements. When I hit a detour in my writing it is because I am metaphorically (obviously), repaving my plot's route.

Tonight the detour I hit involves a major character, rather than a plot point. I realised tonight while writing the climax and final battle of TToA that the major antagonist is nothing more than a hollow shell of the antagonist I want him to be. It took less than a second from when I realised he was hollow to figure out how to "fix" him. If I had been driving, my forehead would have fallen against my car's horn, unfortunately the space bar has a much less fulfilling result. Instead of a prolonged blast of a horn that echoed the yell in my mind, all i got was an above average space between two words in my document and a rectangular red mark on my brow.

I am pleased that I won't have to completely scrap my novel because of a flawed character, but I am disappointed it took me so long to realise it. I feel like I am blinded by the unconditional pride I have for every character I create and I cannot easily see their flaws.

I had a goal to finish this novel, editing and all before the start of July and now, with this rewrite I fear I may have a hard time reaching that goal. *fingers crossed*

Wish me luck. Also, if you feel so inclined, wish my characters luck, the antagonist is truly horrendous now. 

Estimated date of "Completion" (Completion= prelim edits and good enough for other people to read)
TToA- July 1st 2012
G- September 1st 2012
Everything else, TBD

-Brandolyn

G-7,278
TToA- 80,163
TDotRQ-37,276