My longer piece

I am trying to add to the longer piece that I am having my writing group critique. We are taking 20 pages every two weeks. I hadn't read it in a long time. It was something that I started in my first ever attempt at NanoWriMo. I stopped at roughly 15,000 words. I was woefully behind and the story was no longer inspiring me. It is something I was writing from the seat of my pants and I'd hit a lull.

I've returned to it and added another page to it tonight. I actually like it. There are lots of things that need work. Some situations are outrageously unbelievable and those will obviously need to be tweaked. There is a character who I never intended to be more than a bit of comic relief. My critiquing buddies both loved her so I need to work her back in and give her a meatier role in the story. I think I've figured out how to do it, but it's a change I never expected. It is one I agree with though. She's a lot of fun and probably the most well-developed secondary character. Guess I liked writing her.

This is where I am going to turn my attention now -- to this piece. But here is the thing that is going to make me sad. I don't want this to be my first novel. I hear that almost all successful writers have to stick that first novel into a drawer and just leave it there. But I don't want to with this one. Not now anyway. It's a fun adventure story that I think people will want to read. But let's just get it done first and worry about the other thing later.