2,545 words today

It's amazing how much you can write when you get stuck in the minds of your characters...I swear the last 500 words are simply 'she thought this' and 'she thought that.' (Whisper: I love rough drafts)

I've been entering the planning/brainstorming stages for my second novel, which I plan to write for NaNoWriMo, and I was interested in having more than one viewpoint. Most of the books I read and enjoy (not all, but most) seem to have at least two viewpoints, if not three, four, or more. But I don't know if this will happen...the way the character and plot ideas are unfolding, I'm at a loss as to who would have a decent viewpoint other than my main MC. Maybe I'm just looking at it the wrong way. Whereas in this one that I'm starting to finish up now (should be done by the end of next week if things go well!), I can see several people that might have effective viewpoints. I think my problem is, I tend to think that if there is a second viewpoint, it should be a character who is present throughout the whole story. Yes, I have a lot to learn.

Sometimes it seems impossible that anyone can write a work of fiction. I can't even begin to imagine how fantasy/sci-fi writers do it, with all the world-building. I know that things aren't arbitrary, but in the beginning stages of planning so many things are arbitrary, because they are just ideas floating around in a brain. I regularly vacillate between two world beliefs/philosophies: sometimes it seems everything that happens is for a reason (however subtle or oblique), and other times (most of the time, for me) things happen simply because they happen - and not always causal, although of course fiction should work that way.

88,706 words total.