ATM there’s one week left to complete NaNoWriMo 2011. This is Year Four for me; two wins, one abortion on Day Three in Year Two, plus this year. But this year I’m not really doing it according to the rules.

I started off following the rules. I did the same as I did in Years One and Two; coming up with an idea during last couple of days of October. By Day Nine I gave up. The idea for the structure for the novel was good but very difficult to do. I was way behind in the word count and it was taking a lot of time and effort, and rather than allow myself to spin out crap I decided I should shift and write something simpler, something easier to work with. So on Day Nine I started a new novel. By Day Seventeen or so I had 30+ pages, eleven characters, and still no plot and I started wondering what the point of doing NaNoWriMo is for me.

  1. The challenge which forces me to write is probably the most beneficial part.
  2. Finishing a novel is not so valuable; I’ve completed drafts of three novels now so to do one more doesn’t matter much.
  3. Writing lots and throttling my inner editor is somewhat useful.

But managing my inner editor and writing when the story and characters are disposable and not very interesting seems a waste of my writing time.

So on Day Nineteen I changed again. I figured if I’m going to spin out words it’s much better for me to do so with something that has potential value, unlike the new story that I started on Day Nine. So now I’ve returned to my 3DayNovel story, the one that ended with 23,500 words. That novel is very short, has a lot of potential as a story, and I’m kinda lost as to how to inflate it into the complete story that it needs to be. I’m forcing myself to write new scenes, telling myself that some of these are throwaways, starting and aborting various ideas, probing some new aspects. I’m trying, as much as possible, to *not* write the scenes that I’ve already identified as missing; I’m trying to generate new stuff. My goal is to generate 2,000 words per day for the rest of November.

So Day Twenty Four of NaNoWriMo 2011 looks like this so far for me:

  1. 9537 words, original NaNoWriMo
  2. 20042 words of crap for a plot-less meandering
  3. 8300 words so far after four days of spinning new material with old characters

With seven days left in the month I can almost double the word count of the original 3DayNovel, and hopefully still have the obvious missing scenes to write. If I can do that, I’ll consider NaNoWriMo 2011 a success. I dunno if I’ll try to claim the winner banner though, since I’m not following the rules exactly.

 

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