The End of NaNo

Notice I have not written in a month. This is because of that once-a-year nightmare and miracle called "National Novel Writers Month." During NaNoWriMo, I magically transform from a hermit sitting in my darkened apartment typing with feverish fervor, to a "WRITER"... nay, even more, a "NOVELIST." The special effects team never arrived, though, so the transformation looked less like Sailor Moon...



... and more like what I was doing before, only a little more insane and pressed for time.

The last two Nanowrimo contests, I pushed for the Double NaNo, writing a novel, not just 50,000 words long, but 100,000. I did it, too. This year, knowing publishers do not like epic tomes, I decided to aim for something a bit more humble. I finished the month at 80,780 (I like round numbers).

The story lacks only one more chapter, a scene I skipped because I'm not sure what to do with it. Lizby is in Purgatory, and as she is being led back to the "world," she is shocked to see that her mother, whose sudden death led to her own suicide, is in Purgatory too and about to be led away to whatever task she must do. It's supposed to be a real tear-jerking scene, but I'm stuck. I'll wait a few weeks to let my brain rest.

So what's next for this writer? Well, I have a few people who want to read Last Days, so I'll finish that up. I also want to do another read-thru of Daughters of Ashby because my dad wants to read it. Yikes! I never let my parents read my stuff, it's embarrassing!

Eventually, I want to return to my roots, to Shadowstrider, and finish the last book. Even if I'm left with an issue of what to do with novels that exceed 300k words, I at least want to finish the series. A morbid part of me wants it completed before my stereotypical untimely death, at which time Shadowstrider will be discovered and turned into another post-mortem classic.

A more practical side of me, the one who ignores the Keatses and Poes of the writing world, wants to finish it so I can look at the entire arc of the story and break it into bite-size bits. Or set it aside and publish a bunch of novels that become huge hits so I can pull a "Robert Jordan" and publish Shadowstrider as-is, 300k words and all, and no publisher will glare at me. No, they will joyously accept this epic tome with dollar signs in their eyes and Hollywood on the phone.

MWAHAHAHA!!!

Ahem, yes, that is the more "practical" side of my life. Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia, after all.