NaNoWriMo

[blairmacg]

And I have signed up.  It’ll be my first time.

Now to choose the project.

The contemporary romance novel?  The upside is the idea barreled into my thoughts, nicely formed.  The downside is I’ve never written romance before, and I must keep reminding myself that—unlike my previous projects—the fate of the world/country/etc. need not hang in the balance for there to be tension.  When writing the outline, I kept trying to drop in fantastical or paranormal elements, but none of them worked.  And again–I’ve never written romance.

What about the urban fantasy I’ve been kicking around in my head for years?  Once upon a time, I had a chapter written, but it has been lost in the multiple moves and computer changes over the last few years.  The upside here is I’m jazzed about the ideas, characters and setting the story in Indianapolis.  The downside is the reason it’s been kicking around in my head is that I’ve never managed to successfully connect the opening plot points with the climax.  NaNo could be the pressure the project needs, or I could end up with little pile of wasted word count.  I’d dearly love to have this project work, since I already have ideas and notes for three sequels.

Then there are other projects that wouldn’t fall under Official NaNo because they’re partials or major revisions—The Drunkard, The Slaughterer, Breath of Stone…  I thought of giving myself the goal to finish Sand of Bone revisions, but despite a few recent potholes, those seem to be ticking along just fine now.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Who else is tossing about ideas for NaNo?  Any decisions?

Crossposted to Blair MacGregor Books at Wordpress.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

The personal stakes can be just as intense--think of Pride and Prejudice!

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

Which genre do you feel more inclined to focus on for 30 days? NaNo is a really good framework for trying a new project/genre, such as your contemporary novel, but if you find yourself inclined to want to write something with fantastical elements...

You have an urban fantasy? How cool! I like urban fantasy. Got burned out on how many are the same, but really enjoy reading the ones that are new and fresh.

Lots of people revise during NaNo, but that's really not the same feeling as writing something brand new. New is particularly refreshing if you've been in the midst of revisions for a while.

I've considered changing from the novel I originally posted. I've also considered dropping NaNo, so I'm not sure, at this point, what I'm going to do...even though it's just a few weeks away.

This past week, I was trying to convince myself not to write (or to just write without letting anyone ever see my words again) because of something that happened that was really traumatic.

On the flip side, I have a really good opportunity and I'm struggling to see if I can rise to the occasion...or if I need to drop it while I still have time.

As you say: decisions, decisions. There are always so many decisions to make. :)

I can't wait to hear what you decide to write.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I tend to ride the NaNo wave. In the past couple of years I've given myself a month to work on something out of my comfort zone. This year, that's a novel that I've tentatively outlined - as a non-outliner it's always interesting to find new ways in which outlining does not work for me.

(I'm greenknight, by the way)

For me, writing fast is a Bad Idea. What happens is that I go for the low-hanging fruit: the scenes that are easy to write because I don't need much research or thinking, and they end up much heavier on dialogue and internalisation than description and action.

I just spent two days working out what to put into a scene: my WIP is much better for it, but if I'd been chasing wordcount, the temptation would have been to skip over this.

[marycatelli]

I've got an outline that is meandering toward its conclusion. If it reaches it, I will NaNo it, but having recently finished revising a NaNoWriMo novel where I rushed the outline to be ready, I won't push it.