Up in the Air

So, I’ve been working on a 3-novella series for the past few months. The original story has been through a few different incarnations. It started as a short story, which I finished and beta’d and subbed but it was rejected from a handful of markets.

One of my beta readers suggest I explore the MC’s story more later – so I figured there was no better way to do that than a novel.

After MUCH planning to get the story straight, I finally had a plot for the novel – back story, motivation, sub plots – the whole nine yards. Then I started writing it…and the excitement I had for the MC’s story got lost in all the details.

Rather than continue working on it just for the sake of it, or worse…abandon the project, I decided to split the story into 3 novellas.

I split the scenes I had already written, depending on the POV character, and went back to fill in the holes of Novella 1. Novella 2 had a few scenes finished already, so I figured I could finish it for NaNoWriMo this year.

Then I checked and realized, I’ve actually already written about 21K toward the second novella. Since I’m aiming for about 35K, I’m closer to finishing it than I thought.

So now, I have to scramble. Figure out how Novella 3 is going to tie everything up. And decide if I really have the time to do it right now (but more on that later).

It’s been a real challenge – figuring out the individual story arcs, and also the series arcs. Which details to reveal and in which novella; How to make each story compelling on its own but to also connect seamlessly with the others. It isn’t just as easy as deciding to write a series, is it? There’s real legwork involved (and much gnashing of teeth).

In my last blog post, I talked about Ghostwriting. I just picked up another project, so I am working on 3 simultaneously, as well as trying to do writing for myself. I’m stubborn, I admit it, but I want to do it all.

So, I’ve got 3 days to try to figure out my plan of attack, while working on these 3 freelance projects.

NaNoWriMo starts on Thursday. Am I crazy or just a masochist?