You awaken in darkness and leave your house and start walking. You have a place to go – an end scene – and you can see a bit of the path before you, but that’s all. You do have an old map, a hodgepodge of ideas and characters and events, but who can see maps in dark like this? It’s that darkness before the dawn. It’s chilly. People keep calling you back to sleep in and have a strong cup of tea and a nice hot breakfast.
You keep going.
The sun starts to rise. Little by little you can see a bit more of the road and the surrounding land. You can make out trees and hillocks, and that damp in the air is a nearby river. Other times it’s been village lanes and other times it’s been city sidewalks, but this time it’s proper countryside. Still chilly, a little hungry now, kind of wishing that someone would just pull up alongside you in a nice warm car and shoot you ahead to that ending scene you have scribbled down in your head. But that wouldn’t be this story.
You keep going.
And then the sun finally rises. You stop and climb up on a rock and you look over this vast expanse, behind and before you. You see the hills the path cuts into and you see a bit of smoke from some center of habitation far ahead and you think, oh THIS is the story. Now you have light to see by, so you can take out your map. Now you can see where the paths actually go, where before you might have taken wrong turns, where the landmarks are. You’re about 1/3 of the way to that end scene. November 30 comes and goes.
You keep going.