It's time (again) to start considering where I go next with the novel. There has been a pivotal moment - Laz + co are now physically living under strict guard, close to the point where reality originally broke. Mentally, though, they are unaware of this and continue to trek around the Multiverse. That's right, their beings have been split in two. The same goes for everyone else, except for Iestyn, Jeremiah and The Clock, who are busy running around, setting Laz + co up to break reality.

I think I should write the rest of the novel as follows:-

350 pages of Laz + co's Multiversal shenanigans.
250 pages of their actual existence living near to the Heart.
150 pages of Iestyn, Jeremiah and The Clock's story.

To those of you who didn't dare click the above LJ-cut, my novel's basically reached a point where it's forked off into three main plots that need a lot of attention, but also need to be interwoven around each-other. I've set a goal of 350 pages for the first plot, 250 for the second and 150 for the third.

This would give me roughly 750 more pages. My grand total, then, would be about 1050. If I follow this plan, then the amount of time spent on each side of the story will be appropriate.

The problem is interweaving these stories and giving each aspect enough attention in doing so. I don't want there to be a predictable structure to it, either. I feel that would totally defeat the purpose of my book. If I write it straight and spontaneously, though, important details will most certainly be lost.

Should I type the novel up from here on, covering each of the above aspects separately and then mixing them all together later? Or, alternatively, should I continue to handwrite, keeping each aspect as a separate project, so I can piece it all together in the rewrite?

I want to write them separately to ensure that I cover each part of the story adequately; to make sure that nothing's left out of one story because I've got the happenings of another distracting me. In the heat of creation, particularly with so many plots going on at once, I tend to accidentally omit important details. At this stage in the story, it's vital that I don't miss anything out.

The thing is how accessible I want my novel to be. I'm still the unfortunate victim of a shared computer, and while typed writing is easier to edit, you can't access it while someone else is on the computer - as, usually, they are. So, looks like I'll be tackling this in several handwritten projects, then, to be put together properly in the edit.

It'll make the whole project less manageable in the long run. In fact, I feel so positive about this that I can actually see myself completing 'The Great Couch Happening of '69' in first draft form some time in 2011!