NaNoWriMo – The Journey Continues
How a little commitment can make a big difference
We’re now half way through NaNoWriMo, and I’m thrilled to announce that I’m more than half way to my 50,000 words.
The journey has been exciting, but also a challenge. Going into this book, I had an idea of the external plot I wanted, but there were issues.
First of all, I want the book to be more of a comedy, but my original external plot had a dark side. In fact, that dark side consumed about ¾ of the book. It didn’t feel like I could make this darkness funny or romantic. I knew I would be fighting an uphill battle during the entire month of November if I didn’t do something about it.
In October, I prepared for NaNo by working the plot over. It retained some of the darkness, but now it was only a handful of chapters. Everything before those chapters lightened up, and I was feeling much better about my plans for the book.
Today, I stepped into the chapters of darkness, and I still wasn’t happy with my external conflict. There were far too many plotting problems, and I felt like it just wasn’t the fun and romantic journey I wanted my readers to experience.
I slogged through some words, realizing I had no idea what I was going to do next. I started yawning excessively, and I just wanted to take a nap. Several times, I thought it would be “wise” to just give up for the day and try again later.
No! This is NaNoWriMo! No napping until December.
I decided to take some advice from James Patterson. He suggests making a list of things that could happen, then choosing the most unusual thing.
Fine. I started making a list, deciding not to stop myself to examine the merit of any of my ideas until the list was finished. (Some of you may recognize this strategy as divergent thinking, AKA brainstorming.) Wow, did I come up with some stinker ideas. I would have been very embarrassed at the time if I’d been judging their merit (convergent thinking, for those interested in such nerdy topics).
But as the list progressed, I was struck with an idea that took on a life of its own. The list-making was over, because the idea was something that not only lightened the darkness of the external conflict, it solved some plotting problems along the way. I backtracked to two characters with little impact on the story, but with resources at their disposal. I decided to make them the driving force behind the sinister external plot, but with not-so-sinister intentions. These characters have personal connections to both the heroine and the romantic rival, making the conflict and secrets that much more delicious.
Ok, enough of me celebrating the fact that I’ve just given myself more work to do. My point is if I had taken that nap (which I still want) and not pushed past the stupid ideas that my lazy brain was handing me, I wouldn’t have found this idea that has completely renewed my excitement for my project. There’s little doubt in my mind now that I’ll complete my 50,000 words by the end of NaNo, and maybe a few thousand more.
Never give up! Especially during NaNoWriMo.
Was there a time when you pushed yourself to keep going when you felt like something you wanted wasn’t possible?
