NaNoWriMo and rediscovering your old work



I haven't been blogging because I have been spending my writing time on my NaNoWriMo novel.  I am technically behind on the  word count but I've written more this time than any of the others. So I consider that a success. I expect that if I do write the entire story it will end up being less than the 50k words called for. Why is that? I am not actually writing the whole thing. I am working out the basic plot elements. How they get form here to there, etc. I am not writing much in way of description or fleshing out every scene.  I have a fear that even if I do get this draft worked out, I won't have the will to go back and do all the hard work to rewrite/flesh out he rest. Means I should probably just give up.  I kid. I kid.

This is my fourth year trying to do NaNoWriMo and my fourth year trying to write this novel. That means I have three other versions of the start.  It fascinated me to look over these other versions and see many differences: not really only in style or plot, but differences in tone. The first one was a little dark with a lot of introspection and internal dialogue. After I realized the first attempt was long and rambling, I tried in the next two to use a flashforward to show that there would be action after the boring bit.  These versions also tried to be a little more lighthearted. In the latest version I've removed a lot of the early stuff where I gave the background on the main character.  This background is very important to justify his actions.  I will try and find some way to organically include this info in the story.

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