Ack! I've stalled!

I'm 5,000 words short of the schedule and I don't think I'm going to be catching up anytime soon.

It's not a problem of plot - I've got an idea where to take it, but last night, I added a twist which I'm not sure I can carry off. I now need to do some emergency exposition to explain why I didn't mention it until that point.

Of course, I could take it out, but it's a good twist and works well with where I want to take the plot - it's a good third layer.

I might skip ahead a bit and write the meeting between two main characters which I have an idea about, but then it's a problem of keeping the continuity when I write the intervening chapters.

Right: That makes no sense really, so here's the plot (I hate doing this as I'm obsessionally secretive about my in-progress projects, but I'm breaking the habit of a lifetime just for you!):

A guy has a a nice life doing a trivial buit engaging job at the seaside with a lovely family, only he has a deep dark secret: When he was fourteen or fifteen he lost his virginity to his childhood sweetheart, who he later told to forget he existed. Eighteen years later a kid claiming to be his tuns up on his doorstep.

He accepts it straight away as he heard about her baby and always wondered if it was his. But there's a twist: they won the lottery six years ago and just recently he was interviewed for a vox-pop TV show on lottery winners.

So, is this kid conning him to get hold of some money or is he genuine? Is he actually the man's son? Is he a delusional psycho? Is the mother prompting him or using him to get revenge for years of shitty single parent life? What connotation of possibilities is going to play itself out?

Damned if I know, I haven't got that far yet.

Interesting points to bear in mind: The story is based on an aspect of my own life. I did go out with my junior school sweetheart when I was fourteen or fifteen and the split up happened just as I describe it in the story. She did get pregnant and it is an outside possibility that it might be mine. So it's a situation that's played on my mind for...um... seventeen years?

The story's set on Yorkshire's east coast where I've been on holiday three times - twice in three years and once a decade or more ago. So I know the territory reasonably well, which is why I'm setting it there. I'd be incredibly flattered if anyone can tell exactly where from my descriptions.

There will be a watershed meeting between the "hero" and the mother. When I've decided what twist is to be put into play, that will be the "reveal" where everything becomes plain. Or maybe it won't. Maybe there'll be another secret which only comes out later. Yeah, I like that.

I'm not sure whether to have the hero's family life come apart. I like how I've written the family and I want them to be a strong unit, but that robs me of a fair amount of plotline. Also, I don't like family breakups and would rather not write about them. Would be a nice change, as most of the chick lit and lit fic I've read involves some kind of family breakup. You don't usually read about a strong family reacting well to a situation. Maybe because it's boring. I guess I'll find out.

The narrative alternates between characters, but I don't know whether to do this on a strictly per-chapter basis or just as and when I reach a natural point in that characters' story.

The story is written in "first person present" style - "I am", "I do this, then I do that." - because I find that easier to write in and because I think it helps bring out the feelings and indecisiveness of the main characters. And I've always been crap at tenses.

I'm publishing it myself here because I crave validation and acknowledgement that I'm not writing a bunch of unreadable shite. I think that blog may turn into my literary outlet: a portal to put all of my writing efforts online.

So anyway, I've come to the crunch, where Ive got to decide which twists to use and I know I'm going to take days to work it out - which will probably mean some obsessive pondering and plotting, taking each connotation to see which one excites me most. Hopefully that excitement will transfer to what I write. I reckon once I've decided, I can knock out a good 3-5000 words a day. I'm finding 2000 words absolutely no effort - indeed all of the writing I've done so far has come together incredibly easily.

So anyway, is anyone else mithering this much over their story? Still feeling confident of reaching the fifty thousand target? Am I the only one obsessing over this shite?

Aargh!