NaNo Win

I forgot when I started this how terrible I am at blogging. I finished the 50k in November! Woo! I'm only about halfway done with my story, though, so I'm going to continue writing after the holiday season. I am, in fact, considering setting a goal for the whole of next year. I was initially tempted by MilWordy, but I already know there is no way I could write a million words in a year. I don't have enough time, drive, or material, and my wrists would probably fall off even if I wore the braces every night. Instead I am trying to decide between 1k a day, or 366k this year OR 500k this year, to go for a little extra. Since I'm doing NaNo for sure in November, and will probably end up doing at least one month of Camp NaNo, that works out to about 40k for the rest of the months.

To help prepare for this year of noveling, I've begun to organize all of the stories I've worked on. I've made a list of my progress in each one. I'm sad to report that my finish rate is abysmally low. Of the stories I would ever consider working on again, only TWO have full first drafts, and one of those is a short story! SO. My other goal for this year is to finish four or five of the other novels.

I am confident in my ability to finish my Camp NaNo and my November NaNo from this year, as well as the one from last year. They all have pretty great outlines, and every time I look at the one from last year I am struck by how well it's paced. I also have a zombie related short story I could start and finish easily since I already know the entire storyline.

This leaves me with my 09 and 07 NaNos (so long ago!) which need outlining work before I'd be able to finish them. I also started a vampire story based on my friends, which trailed off because I stopped speaking to the girl who was supposed to date the vampire. I think I'm going to pick it back up. I have some ideas as to where the plot needs to go, but I don't have a written outline anymore. I also lost all of the chapters except the first one. This is literally the only story I have ever lost part of, and I'm sadder than I realized I'd be. As it is, I'm going to rewrite the first chapter, as my writing style has changed somewhat and I'm not sure I could make it flow well enough.

Finally, I have 7-8 story ideas I haven't yet fleshed out enough to write. Several of them are new, and several of them are ones I've just now had enough insight into to justify putting them on any sort of "to write" list. Two of them will likely be my NaNos for next year, so I don't want to work on them until it's closer to those months to make sure I don't get tired of them too quickly.

I suppose there is one last category on my list. It has three stories on it. My second NaNo, and two stories I started in high school. I never want to work on them again, though I still have everything related to them. The high school stories just aren't interesting enough to warrant more time, and I've somewhat cannibalized one of them for a later NaNo to much better effect. The NaNo from 2008...Let's just say I didn't win that year for a reason. Hate is too nice a word for how I feel about that story. It was influenced by a short lived interest in being as green as possible. While I still recycle and turn lights off when I don't use them and take short showers, I'm not anywhere near as disgustingly maniacal about it, and I certainly lack any urge to preach about it.

So after such a long time between posting, this one has ended up quite long! I realize I don't have many any readers, but I do have another post planned for the near future regarding writing. Until then, I'll be planning for my big year of writing!