Tuesday, June 12, 2012

I really am participating…I swear it.

So, Camp Nanowrimo is going the way of most of the Nanos I have written.  Not to well.  I’m letting other things in life get to me and I’m refusing to find time to write.  And even when I do find time to write, I refuse to write.  Why? Because writing sucks. It’s hard for me. I’m impatient. I want to story to flow from me and instead I am have writer’s constipation.  So Nano is so hard for me to do.  Don’t get me wrong, I will pull this out because I want to, but my story is just not forming well. I don’t like outlining, even though it does help me some, but I’d rather see how the story unfolds as I go along.  I’m wondering if I can write the first draft, outline for the second using first draft bones, and then go back in for the fleshing out with that in hand?  I mean it’s my novel and writing isn’t just done one way or another right?

I guess what’s getting me is that the story I am writing isn’t right. This is a rewrite of last year’s Nano because I didn’t finish it and hated it by the time Nano was done.  Why?  Because the story was just flopping around like a dying fish. There was no saving it and so I left it. This year I decided to try again with the original novel in mind, but then I realized, the time frame of that novel wouldn’t work and I’d have to try something else.  Also, the two times before I tried to write the novel they both started with the dreaded, and not much liked, waking up opening.  Yeah, I think it was brilliantly written, but seems a lot of novel’s start that way, and I’m not a sheep, so I had to be creative and go for a different opening.  I think this time around I have it starting much better, but then I fell back into the previous novel’s plot and it wasn’t until the other day I realized I really can’t go with that plot.  I have to change it because the time needs to be in Spring and not Summer.  But then the plot had to change because things that were happening in my story at the time would already have happened by Spring and they were the focal point really of the novel.  So what now?  Well it finally hit my how I could rework it and I think that it might make for a better more challenging novel to write.

I haven’t even tried writing a synopsis for my novel.  Wait, I am lying, I did try a quick one to post on my Camp Nanowrimo author’s page, but it was more like “this happened and then this happened”, instead of what the story is about.  I think I need to get into it more before I can do it and maybe study on how to write a good synopsis.  I always figured that could wait since I am just writing now, but I guess I need that in mind too so I can actually talk about the novel without actually talking about the novel. Hope you understood that.

So what’s next?  Well I am going to face my fear of killing my novel at almost half way into Camp Nanowrimo and starting fresh.  I can do this.  It’s not as scary as it seems and if I don’t hit 50k by the end of the month that’s ok because at least I would have started the novel and it would be the right novel this time around.  So here goes, Camp Nanowrimo 2012, take 2.

Writing away,
M.