I did bring my NaNo project to a screeching halt. It was the right thing to do. I’ll be writing again by tomorrow afternoon, but with the advantage of a legal pad full of character notes so I don’t keep on contradicting myself.
Some stories are single POV with straight forward plotting. It’s easy to go from A to Z at 80 words a minute and exceed that 50,000 NaNo word count with relative ease. That was my 2011 NaNo experience, and it was good.
I bit off more than I could chew this year, however, by plunging into two parallel stories with lots of characters. The stories will come together in the last third of the novel, so the characters’ timelines are critical. When I thought of later trying to revise and rewrite that 50,000 words of random and unorganized writing, I caved.
I’m fine with my decision. I’ll still post my word count through the end of the month. Even if I have 30,000 words of a new novel, I’ll be a very happy writer. Thanks to NaNoWriMo, I feel like I’m back on that carousel for another ride.
Parallel stories take so much working out and attention to fine detail. It’s even worse when you try to interweave them, which I did once to my cost!
Good for you!
Sounds like you’re making great progress, Pat.
The dreamers who came up with the NaNoWriMo idea should be given some kind of award. The event has now kick-started two novels for me.
This is one of the healthier perspectives I’ve seen to approaching NaNo– allowing it to be a motivator and catalyst but not the task-master. That’s wonderful!
Pat – I love it that you’re making the most of your writing, even if it isn’t what you’d thought you’d do at the beginning of NaNo. In the end, you’ll have lots that you can ‘mine’ for future work.
Smart decision and great attitude! No one wants a total mess at the end of the month. And if you’ve written more than you normally would, then that’s a successful NaNo.