I've hit the middle of my novel. This has always been the most difficult part for me, in first drafts. 

In the first section, I can see the structure clearly, I get a pretty good idea of what's building for the Act 1 climax. I'm excited with the idea of the book, and all that energy pours into the page. I'm discovering characters, inventing things madly, doubling back to put notes to myself to make sure something I've said in chapter 7 is supported by the discoveries in chapter 3. I can see the form of the novel, a glimmering of how it will sweep from these opening moments to the culminating scene.

The final section has the I'm-nearly-there rush that pulls me along, thousands upon thousands of words building each day. I have the weight of the novel behind me; I can see where I've been, and how all the threads must tie together. I can close plot developments, climax subplots, resolve character growth and pay off all the tiny things I set up in the earlier moments before drawing to a close. The final section is, perhaps, the easiest.

It's when I stumble out of Act 1 and into the long, haunting stretch of Act 2 that it all falls apart. There's a natural drop in tension from the Act 1 climax, and you're pushing through the lull, but there's no thrill of it nearly being completed to draw you; there's no sense of everything coming together. Instead, you have to take what you threw onto the page in the first Act and sustain it so it can be pulled together in Act 3

Act 2 is where you discover all the really stupid decisions you made in Act 1 that, while they worked for Act 1, have put you up a ten-mile tree with bears underneath in Act 2 - and not the characters, which wouldn't be a bad thing, but the writer. You have to make all the crazy ideas make sense, and maintain the belief,and come up with a climax that's strong but that won't overpower Act 3's.

Act 2 is where you decide that your novel is complete crap that no one would ever want to read, and should be left to die quietly in the corner of the filing cabinet where it can't inflict any more injury on the world. And - here's the crucial part - then you keep writing it.

Sigh.

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