Thank Goodness for Friends

I adore my friends, both those I've had for ages and all the new ones I've recently made (especially those now following my blog - thank you! =). But the friends my title refers to are not mine, but those of my MC. And thank goodness for them.

For the past few weeks I have been despairing over my Middle Blues, but I am here to tell you I have [hopefully] come up with a solution! Or two, actually.

First, after attending an amazing author talk by Aprilynne Pike at my writing group, I have decided to lower my word count bar from 100K to 80K (she said 70K was about the norm for YA). Immediately upon deciding this, sitting there in the front row listening to her outpouring of wisdom, I felt a bit of the weight lift from my shoulders. For days now I have been feeling that there is no way my story can stretch for 100K. When I originally set the count I thought it could (maybe even go over), but what with my current plot problems, definitely not. So now, although it means updating my progress bar will be a pain since it's in percentages and I'm horrible at math, I am halfway done with my story! Hallelujah! \(ToT)/

Second, since my MC has no interest in attending to the plot, I have decided that one of his friends will step up and get involved instead - and drag his lazy butt along to help. This way the MC stays true to character (because I couldn't change that part of him without throwing off his entire personality), but still has to deal with the plot. Brilliance! This is a true testament of why you create secondary characters for your MC to regularly interact with. You never know when you'll need someone to manipulate the MC to do what you need.

So now I'm halfway finished and the story is flowing again. For once, the Middle isn't looking so blue.