On the NaNoWriMo Bandwagon- I think.

With all of the crazy gyrations my book has been through in the past few weeks, having anything ready to write by November just didn’t seem possible. Originally, I was just going to skip it. It would have been a shame, since I did it two years in a row, and then did Camp, but I supposed I’d be neck-deep in editing.

Then, when I temporarily cut the book in half, I thought I could probably be ready to write the second one in the series by November. I would have had to put the first one aside by now and start researching and outlining, but it might have been possible.

Then, I went back to the original length and figured I couldn’t really do NaNo on a WIP. I know I could be a rebel, but I’m not really keen on the idea. But then I heard that they’ve changed the rules and are allowing WIP’s as long as your 50k words are new material. It seems some of the old-timers are highly incensed at this change and there’s a big ongoing fight about it on a forum thread. The naysayers are pretty worried that this is the top of a slippery slope. Next thing you know, you’ll be able to write any old word count! Or dear God, they might allow nonfiction! It’s the beginning of the end.

But hyperbole aside, the fact remains that I’m probably going to do it. It’s such a fantastic, supportive environment I really hate to miss out. As a result of my ongoing reorganization, I have roughly 50-60K words worth of new scenes to write. So all that I need to do to be ready is make sure I’m clear on what new things need to go where. It really doesn’t help that I’ve chopped two POV characters, deleted at least three subplots and completely changed the story of another POV character. At this point, I think I’ve cut as much as I’ve kept.  And now I have the sneaking suspicion that one or both of the removed POVs might have to return. But I’m absolutely not allowing myself to think about that until I’ve completed this draft.

And that’s the main reason I want to do NaNoWriMo. I won’t start at the beginning, but with any kind of luck, I might be able to type “The End” before the end of November. That would be awesome.

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