Of all the things I should be worried about right now, my addled brain is\u00a0focused on something that’s nearly a month away. \u00a0The National Novel Writing Month.<\/p>\n
I shouldn’t worry about it. \u00a0In fact, I shouldn’t even participate this year. \u00a0It’s just one more plate to try to spin with all the others. \u00a0I don’t think I can do it.<\/p>\n
But then, that’s kind of the point. \u00a0Lots of people don’t think they can write 50,000 words in a month. \u00a0You just have to put your butt in the chair, hands on the keyboard, and do your best. \u00a0And maybe you’ll surprise yourself.<\/p>\n
This year would be my fourth attempt. \u00a0I’ve only succeeded once, and that was when I started\u00a0The Repossessed Ghost<\/em>.<\/p>\n The first year, I sort of cheated. \u00a0You’re supposed to start a brand new novel, but I chose to work on\u00a0A Clean Slate<\/em>, which already had about 1,100 words. \u00a0I chose poorly, regardless. \u00a0A Clean Slate<\/em> is about a group of adventurers that are reanimated from stone, and have no memory of how they were petrified in the first place. \u00a0They’re sent on a journey to save the kingdom, and along the way, discover that they might not be the good guys. \u00a0It’s a bit of\u00a0Bourne Identity<\/em> plus\u00a0The Dirty Dozen<\/em>\u00a0in a low fantasy setting. \u00a0It’s a complicated story, and I was a fool to think I could rush it out in 30 days. \u00a0I only managed about 12,000 words or so.<\/p>\n The next year, I succeeded with\u00a0The Repossessed Ghost<\/em>, though I didn’t know that was the title at the time. \u00a0Heck, the title still might change. \u00a0Nothing is set in stone with that story. \u00a0Inspired by\u00a0The Dresden Files<\/em>, and with a main character I already knew from playing him in a roleplaying game, I managed to get 50,000 words written with a few hours to spare. \u00a0In fact, I wrote around 25,000 words in just the last three days. \u00a0It was insane. \u00a0And I’m still working on that story, polishing and revising. \u00a0I think it might actually be publishable.<\/p>\n Last year, I tried a different story. \u00a0It’s one I’d thought about writing for about 15 years. \u00a0Again, I focused on a main character that I’d played in a game. \u00a0The game was a\u00a0MUSH, so really, I’d written\u00a0thousands and thousands of words using this character. \u00a0I thought that would give me an advantage. \u00a0But it wasn’t enough.<\/p>\n The problem last year was the world building. \u00a0Oh heavens. \u00a0I built the culture, the religion, the naming patterns that they use, from birth to adulthood. \u00a0I mapped out the main character’s family tree. \u00a0I came up with details for their social hierarchy. \u00a0And somewhere in the midst of all that world building, I lost track of the story. \u00a0I’m not sure how many words I managed to write last year. \u00a0Under 20,000 I think. \u00a0A pitiful showing.<\/p>\n I don’t know what I’m going to write this year. \u00a0I have a couple of novel ideas, but I’m not sure they’re things I want to attempt under the pressure of NaNoWriMo. \u00a0And with everything else going on in my life, it’s hard to stop and focus on something new.<\/p>\n Editing The Repossessed Ghost<\/em> is comparatively easy.<\/p>\n I should come up with something simple. \u00a0Maybe sketch out a basic plot outline. \u00a0Then discover the characters on November 1st when I try to write them. \u00a0Maybe I should try science fiction instead of fantasy? \u00a0Maybe I should try to write a story in Arthur Kane’s world? \u00a0Arthur Kane is the main character of the first novel I completed, which will never see the light of day for how terrible it is. \u00a0But maybe I could write\u00a0in that setting. \u00a0I wouldn’t have to do a bunch of world building, then, so I’d avoid that trap.<\/p>\n I don’t know. \u00a0And I don’t know how I’m going to find the time.<\/p>\n We’ll just have to see. \u00a0If I can keep up with Blogtober, maybe I’ll be able to keep up with NaNoWriMo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Of all the things I should be worried about right now, my addled brain is\u00a0focused on something that’s nearly a month away. \u00a0The National Novel Writing Month. I shouldn’t worry about it. \u00a0In fact, I shouldn’t even participate this year. \u00a0It’s just one more plate to try to spin with all the others. \u00a0I don’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=735"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":736,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735\/revisions\/736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}