Black Moment Time?

I was coming up to the ‘finish line’ in the NaNoWriMo contest (write 50k in one month) and I hit a wall. (Not literally, as I was sitting in a comfy chair in the public library.) As I sat there, gazing out the window in my favourite writing seat, I thought ‘now what?’ I had everything in mind for what was going to happen to my character when things got ‘really bad’ leading up to the climax as well as how she was going to solve all her problems and her happily ever after.

But how was I going to get there from here? There didn’t seem to be anything left to be done.

Well, after I packed up my laptop, bought a pile of used books off that damn shelf near the library exit, and headed outside, I realized that it was black moment time in my story.

Then I thought, ‘already’? I was only nearing 50,000 words. In fact, I was sitting at 49,000. What to do, what to do? It felt too soon to hit the ‘black moment’ button, but the story was there, ready, all geared up. But what about me? Not so ready.

As I walked, I realized that everything was all geared up for things to hit the shitter in my story and that what I had planned was going to take some doing. Like at least 20,000 words, plus another 10,000 for resolving loose ends. Plus, on the next draft, I would undoubtedly flesh out some things, such as setting, adding another 10,000 words or so. If I didn’t follow the story and blast the black moment right now, I was going to have my usual problem of a lagging story and a word count hovering over 120,000. Yikes.

It wasn’t a wall after all, it was black moment time.