NaNoWriMo

The month of November (and therefore, NaNoWriMo) is 10 days in. That's 10 days of solid writing (okay, I lie -- nine, because I skipped a day) after having not written a long piece since 2009's NaNo. I'll admit, getting back in the 'writing every day' seat is hard for me. I've focused on short stories this year, all of them under 8k words each and taking less than a week to write each one, the whole year figuring I'd get around to writing another long piece 'eventually'. I've been waiting for the perfect time...only the perfect time never seemed to arrive, so I decided to use NaNo 2010 to finish a novel.

I spent October brainstorming and wading through half-formed plots and possible ideas. I knew I wanted it to be something fun to write. So I picked a faerie idea that I figured would be perfect -- wrong. Not only was it painful, like pulling teeth, I ended up counting my words obsessively after every 200 words done. I got maybe 5k in before abandoning it without a second look back.

I thought: Okay. I need to focus; something fun. What is fun? Not faeries...not really, especially not in a piece with no planned romance (I'm a sucker for -some kind- of romance!) Werewolves? Yes. Yes and yes. So I picked up and 'recycled' a world I had created before and worked up a cast that I liked. Ran with it for 5k before I realized that my story was nearly told and no matter what I tried to do, the plot that I had just wasn't long enough. Lunacy will be a short I'll finish in December -- NaNo's not the time for it.

Time to regroup...again. Fun. What was fun last year? Obviously Straydog, my '09 NaNo, was, because I finished it at 65k by November 25th. I went over it in my head and decided that I could write a sequel to that, starring a secondary character, Chaz, as my protagonist. Overnight I had a semi-plot, a group of characters (including most of Straydog's cast) and all I had to do was write it. I had an opening sentence in mind...but when I sat down to write? Something else came onto the page. Something strange that flowed wonderfully and gave me 2k without letting me pause once to consider my word count.

5.5k in now...and I don't have any idea what the heck I'm writing. I don't know why the Magi and the Wyverns are enemies. I don't have any idea what Wylde wants or why the slave, Kascien, pits dragon-dog hybrids against one another and burns the losers in a Pyre. I don't particularly enjoy working without an outline... yet here I am. Every night I'm churning out more than enough words to keep the story going and it's taking enough turns to keep my interest piqued. Sure, I don't like every word I put out, but it's editable -- that's what December's for.

I know me -- in about a week I'll be moaning about how hard it is, and how I can't possibly continue, but for now? I'm rather enjoying myself :)