NaNoWriMo – Reflections So Far

…ie, what I’m doing instead of actually writing my novel, which is what I should be doing.

This is my second novel in a month experience this year. I expected this one to go pretty much like the one in May – rocky start, periods of sheer creative joy, followed by periods of utter exhaustion with the whole process. This time around, the process is familiar to me. I know I can write a novel in a month; I already did it in May. As such, my focus for this novel has been less on completing the process and more on the actual book.

Unlike the last novel, which suffered from periods of indifference and intense frustration, this novel has been nothing but a sheer joy for me. I started the last novel with a plot and a clear understanding of my characters. Of course, they evolved as I wrote. Surprise things happened that delighted me as a writer. But in the end, it was a fairly straightforward story which lead to a fairly straightforward ending.

This novel is completely different. I started the month again with a plot idea, relatively clear characters, and after a couple of days threw all of them out the window, restarted on page one with no characters or plot at all; only a list of things I personally love in a story. My main character is a temporary amnesiac living on a world with talking appliances, alien tentacle bugs, and vampires.

Unlike the last novel, where I focused on "getting it done", I’ve kind of meandered through this one. I’m close to seven thousand words behind, and while this irks me on a goal fulfillment level, I really don’t mind as much as I think I should. The goal isn’t all encompassing. I’m not sure if this is a good thing. The novel in a month process really worked for me in the last novel. Kept my writing fresh, and kept my mind from being lost in quagmires.

I want to finish 50,000 words on this novel by November 30th. I’ve made a goal of it, and I’m the kind of person who fulfills my goals. But if nothing else, I think this is the most fun, novel sized writing project I’ve ever taken on.

And on even brighter potential news, a huge opportunity has opened up for me this past week. I don’t really want to write out too much on it until I have a more solid idea of what can/will come to pass, but if things work out, I may have found the solution to one of my largest challenges this decade.

Nuff said. Update on Vash’s life, complete.