Most important is my revision schedule. I've said before that I am killing myself to complete these revisions. These will be the LAST revisions I make on this ms until (if) someone with a shiny agent badge asks me for more. It's root canal with a cup of tea for anesthetic, but I'm muddling through. I'm a third of a way through guts and garters revisions and my self-imposed deadline is November 18th.
The second thing that's put me off NaNo is this post from Maggie Stiefvater. At first, I discounted it. I've heard criticism against NaNo before (like this from Salon's Laura Miller last year) and it never rang true to me. But Maggie's 'dear john' letter to NaNo did. BookEnd is a NaNo baby, and though it would most likely not exist if not for NaNo, it would also probably not need such extensive revisions if I'd taken more time with the writing of it.
So, while I'm happy with the new story I've started this year in NaNo, I'm not going to worry about word count (like, not at all.) In fact, I'm using November as a springboard not to write a new book, but just to think about one.
What about you? Are you a NaNo fan forever, or do you have your doubts?
I hereby bestow the "One Lovely Blog" award on the following three blogs which are both lovely and smart:
Yvie Gonya at Wandering on the Edge of Paradise
Sharon Bayliss at The Blue Word
Jennifer Burke at Jen's Bookshelf
Thank you so much for the award!! NaNo is a great way to get a little kick in the bum towards your writing goals, but I've never been interested myself. My muse tells me how much to write and when and doesn't know when it's NaNo. The super-fast writing probably does mean more time slogging through revisions, which sucks, but doesn't mean the MS won't get there. BookEnd is awesome. Your pain will pay off in the end.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on the award.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on the award. NaNo works for me because it's how I write my first drafts anyway, and if people enjoy it then that's great. If it's not fun, or they have other things to do, then absolutely stay away from it :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the blog award, Magpie! I'm also not doing Nano. I think Nano sounds like a great way to power through a first draft, but you're already at the next stage so it's a good call to concentrate on that for a while!
ReplyDeleteThere's always next year :)
Thank you for the award!
ReplyDeleteThis is the first time I'm doing NaNo, and my reasoning is that if (when) I don't reach the 50,000 (I know, bad NaNo-er, rearranging my goals), I've at least reached my goal of starting a new book, which wasn't really happening because college kept getting in the way. So, it helped. But I'm not really too worried about the word goal, because I don't want to force the plot or characters just to reach that arbitrary goal.
Good luck planning your next book!