Rebel Yell

Right after I posted my plans for NaNoWriMo, I got another ghostwriting project, both a blessing and a curse.

A blessing, in that it’s more money and more freelancing experience. A curse in that my own writing has promptly been pushed to the backburner for the time being.

You know how I was all set to work on the 2nd Novella in a 3-part trilogy? And how I realized that I had already done more work on it than I originally thought (and that now, I only have to add about 10K to hit my word count goal)?

Both of these things have conspired against my NaNo plans in a way. There is no way I can outline Novella 3 in the next couple of days. Sure, I could pants it – but that’s just not me. And I don’t want to rush headlong into it without being prepared. I don’t want to write it just for the sake of writing it.

I know a lot of people look at NaNo as a waste, that anyone who tries to write 50,000 words in such a short amount of time is either writing crap or just doing it on a whim. And I certainly don’t want to fall victim to that.

But I look at it the same way I look at the Million Word Challenge. The word count is a guide. What I’m really trying to achieve is daily writing – sticking to the habit of getting something down on the page everyday (the more the better, but just sitting down everyday is the goal).

So, I’ve had to rethink things a bit and shuffle projects. I won’t be able to work on Novella 3 yet. I still need to figure out the entire series arc and the best places to divide it up into the individual novellas.

But that doesn’t mean I’m giving up on NaNoWriMo.

I’ll still be trying to finish the novel I started back in 2007, but to hit the 50,000 word count goal, I’m going to be spreading it over a number of other projects, as well. 2 short stories I’ve been trying to suss out for a month or so now; and the ending of Novella 2.

Hopefully, doing it this way will keep me fresh and motivated instead of getting stuck in to monotony taht can come from working on a longer project.

I just hope it’s more successful than one of my other NaNo attempts, where my plan was to write a collection and I got maybe 3 stories in before everything crashed and burned. 🙂

So…Wish me luck. I’m a NaNo Rebel, baby!