Monday, October 19, 2009

NaNo: It's a verb

Are you NaNo'ing?

I feel kind of torn this year. I'm not planning to participate in NaNoWriMo. Yes,
that's a mouthful. So I'm verbifying it. I'm not NaNo'ing this year. Just add it
to the dictionary and get over it. And add "verbify" while you're at it :) Ahem.

I've done NaNo (and won) the past two years in a row. It was actually the motivator
for starting and "finishing" my first book. I use the quotes because I've written
at least three separate endings for that first book, and have made a couple of
rather thorough edits to it since the first time I "finished" it. And I have half
an idea for a further edit that would be rather significant (changing wordcount, and
hacking apart the entire beginning). Not sure if I'll ever do that.

I can't seem to stay on topic this morning, can I? Well, therein lies my problem
with NaNo this year. I have three WIPs. Three! One that I started almost a year
and a half ago--a romantic suspense. Love the idea, love the characters. Paused it
to start NaNo last year. The second one is last year's NaNo book--Leap, my sci fi.
Its not done. But its sooo close. And I'm closing in on being able to finish it.
Really! Number 3 is the book I never thought I'd actually write, and started as a
lark, by writing a single scene. On this blog, no less. And here I am, closing in
on 40% completion.

So, it's Mid-October, and I have on my plate about 20,000 words left to write on
last year's NaNo book. And 30,000 more on my contemporary category-length. And,
say, 85,000 of 90,000 (or perhaps 50,000 of 55,000, depending on where I take it) on
my suspense. So, should I scrap it all and start a new book for NaNo?

Um, no. I think that would be bad, bad, bad.

And, did I mention that my family is taking a vacation in November? Going for a
week. To the beach. Not even to visit family. I'm reveling in the selfishness of
daring such a thing during the Holiday Season. We are driving to our destination,
and it is entirely plausible that I'll be able to crank out a few thousand words in
the car each way. But I'm thinking my hubby will be annoyed with me for holing up
in the hotel room writing alone while he's with the kids.

So, my official participation in NaNo is out.

But I'm going to try to finish both Leap and my category romance by the end of
November. Starting now. Maybe I'll even start tracking daily word counts. 50,000
between October 19 and November 30. NOT NaNo. But it will be a stretch for me.

I'm thrilled to cheer on everyone else who's doing it for real!

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