NaNo Update

My NaNo motto

There are 11 days left in November. Eleven very short rotations of the Earth on its axis and then—BAM!—it’s December. Which wouldn’t be bad except that in 264 hours NaNo will officially be over and I will no longer be able to fool myself into thinking I’ll hit 50K.

There may be deep sighs involved.

So I thought I’d follow in the footsteps of other authors and give you an update on my NaNo project. I’m stealing this template from KatyUpperman who may or may not have stolen it from someone else. Here we go…

Current mood: Relieved. It’s the same weight-off-my-shoulders feeling I get every time I turn in all of my work on deadline day. This past week and weekend were a wee bit crazy what with all of the articles I was writing, but they are done and it’s a very good feeling.

As for my mood toward NaNo, let’s go with resentful. Mostly because I thought this story idea would work as I had imagined it. Come to find out: It doesn’t. I resent my story for not figuring itself out.

That’s not to say that I’m going to scrap the entire idea, but I’m heading back to the great drawing board in the sky and rethinking a lot of it. Like everything but the beginning and end. Not that I’m near the end, mind you. I haven’t updated my word count recently, but I know I’m under 15K.

Now, just because I’m so far away from 50K doesn’t mean I’m giving up. I plan to keep working on this story, and NaNo is a great motivator for that. But I’ll be spending more time working out some plot details than whipping through words at a frantic pace.

What I’ve learned is this: Some stories take more planning than others. I went into my last WIP with the beginning, the end, and a handful of important scenes. For this, I realize (thanks to the magic of NaNo), I need way more information.

So there’s that.

Inspiration: This is sort of what I told myself about my NaNo project this week:

Goals as of today: I have a good base for this story, but today I plan to play with the plot so that this is a book someone actually wants to read, not a rambling account of who knows what.

Recent favorite NaNo WIP bit:

Behind clenched eyelids I imagine my mother rifling through the life of a man she loved too little, picking and choosing which pieces of him are sold to strangers and scattered around the city until one day they appear as tokens from someone’s great-, great-something. “Where did grandpa get this hideous Hawaiian shirt?” the stranger would ask. And another stranger would say she hadn’t the slightest clue, but considering the hideousness of the hideous Hawaiian shirt, it would be best for everyone if it was burned. And just like that, a piece of my father would disappear.

Non-NaNo news: See above. Also, this Thursday is Thanksgiving. Who put that there?

In my downtime, I’m reading: Right now, nothing. But the next book I pick up will be The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. 

You should read this blog post: This is an oldie, but I still go back again and read it: 13writing tips from Chuck Palahniuk.

Your turn to spill: How’s your writing (NaNo or otherwise) going?