Its All There Now - In My Head

I'm on the home stretch of writing the book. My protagonist, Silas, has arrived in California and is on his way to the hills of the 49er Gold Rush.

And I know what to write.

I don't know what the writing process is like for REAL novelists, but for this amateur it has turned out that I work from a series of ever-more detailed outlines until I finally have one - usually set down in a kind of stream of consciousness style - that I can actually write from. Typically, I'll write a chapter or two from my detailed outline until I reach a place where I don't have enough specifically worked out in my head to continue putting words into the first draft.

I then need to do some housekeeping of the notes, ideas, research reminders, etc, that I've scattered at the bottom of the working pages, then I sit and think, concentrate, cogitate, brainstorm, etc, until I've worked out in my head what, in detail, is going to come next.

Its a "writing" session in which little or no writing gets accomplished, but in the end I'm usually eager to write because its all there - I know what to write.

The challenge of how to write it is always there, of course.

So, anyway, during my last session I sat and thought, took notes, and I finally have it all worked out in my head - what characters are going to appear and when, which scenes will come before others, how I'll work out the logistics of setting up a chain of events, etc.

Which is great because I have it all figured out right up to the ending.