The great line from a poem by Robert Burns which John Steinbeck used for his novel ,.. “the best laid plans of mice and men, often go awry,” comes to mind as I look at my lack of progress during the NanoWriMo event this November. I’d planned to be on fire to complete 50,000 words into my new novel by month end, but given that I’m only at 13,366 words, it’s not likely.
I’m liking the new novel and story very much, so that’s not really the problem. I’m thinking there are a couple of things that have gotten me off track.
First and foremost is the guilt factor. I have all the edit points noted on my hard copy of my first draft novel, ‘Inheriting S.O.F.I.A.’ that are ready for me to start working on my second draft, but I’d put that aside to do the NanoWriMo event. I feel that I compromised on this as not finishing what I started makes me feel bad. I’m into the new book already while leaving my first project to languish, thinking that I needed the NanoWriMo event to spur me on to get more writing done per day, but it just doesn’t feel right.
Secondly,…in my rush to ready myself for this month long event, I also compromised the way I write in that I normally complete an outline first, hashing out the plot details and discovering new twists I want to add in the process. While I started my outline for my second novel, and have an idea of where it is ultimately going, I don’t have it completely fleshed out yet. I probably don’t even have it completed enough to get to the 50,000 word mark, if I’m honest with myself, and that’s not usually how I’ve worked in the past on writing projects. In fact, the times I didn’t have my outline envisioned were when I created long, rambling stories that didn’t come together all that well. I like to envision the story in the outline process, but this new novel isn’t completely envisioned yet, so that’s been bothering me.
Throw into the mix that in November I had a very tense day job work event to deal with and a little holiday called Thanksgiving as well, and there was even more distractions than usual to keep my from writing.
So even though there is some guilt as well in not finishing the NanoWriMo event as planned, I’m pulling back on my overly ambitious plan for novel number two, and am going back, for now, to finish my first one. Definitely a crash and burn situation on my NanoWriMo plan, but I think it’s best for my writing style that I deliver my first baby before working on the second.
In thinking about my outline first preference, I know that some writers don’t work this way. They like to compose things by the seat of their pants and use the actual process of writing their novel as their way of exploring the possibilities of their imagination. I guess I do this as well, to some extent, but I put that in the outlining process of dreaming up the whole story. I never follow the outline religiously, as you’ll always come up with things in the process to make your story better, but it helps to keep me on track otherwise during the actual writing process. This also seems to help me keep track of the details, which can be considerable in a novel, and allow me to concentrate on the creativity of the story details. I think for my personality, it’s the best way for me to work, and actually allows me to extend the creative process out farther, in both the outlining and writing stages.
So that’s my elaborate excuse for failing at my plan to complete 50,000 written words in November. Instead, I’m hoping to have my second draft of my first novel completed by year end, and then I’ll send it off to a proofreader and continue work on my second novel’s outline first. To me,…that’s the right way to do things
2nd Novel, 1st Draft: Burt’s Bots
November 29th, 2015:
Outline: Partially done for the first part of the story
Novel Word Count: 13,366
