Reghan Skerry

I know we’re only a week in, but it feels like October is halfway over already. In the last few days, I’ve gone from feeling like NaNoWriMo is still an abstract concept, something happening sometime in the future, to freaking out because NaNoWriMo is right around the corner.

I might be freaking out, but the timing is actually really good. I’ve spent the last few months revising and outlining, and I’m getting a bit desperate to get back to writing. I’m feeling motivated, and, with the 2018 reboot, I’m intentionally trying to get my creative life in order. (And I find it so much easier to structure my writing time when I’m sitting down and writing, rather than working on edits or outlines.)

So that’s good.

It just leaves the question of what I’m going to work on.

I’ve been considering two options.

First, I can work on the next round of revisions on The Black Sun. As of last week, I’ve heard back from all of my beta readers, and this week I’m going to start looking at the notes. (Then I’m probably going to have to take a few days to recover from that initial hit to my ego… then I’ll be able to look at those notes again and be objective.) I can spend the rest of October coming up with a solid plan to whip that manuscript into shape.

The second option is to work on the first draft of Violet Lane. The index card outline is done, I’ve just got to spend a little time fleshing out a few of the characters, and I can start writing. Technically, this is the third attempt at the first draft; Violet Lane is essentially the same story I wrote for NaNo 2016 (then known as ‘The Persistence of Memory’), but it’s taken this long to really feel like I really know what I’m doing with it.

Violet Lane is also going to be long—I’m aiming for around 100K words—and I don’t want to wait until 1 November to start writing. If I start in the next week or so, NaNo might help me push through that bit in the middle when everything seems impossible, and I might be able to finish the draft before the holiday chaos derails me.

Either way, I’m going to be a rebel. I’m kind of looking forward to that—I’ve never been a NaNo rebel before.

Thinking about it, I’m almost certainly going to choose option #2, Violet Lane. I’ll take the rest of this week to do my character work (I need to figure out my POV characters’ voices), and then, if everything goes according to plan, I’ll be able to start the actual draft in the next week or so. I’m still going for 50,000 words in November… they’re just the ones in the middle, rather than the beginning.

I’m still going to try to work on the revisions to The Black Sun, but that’ll be my secondary project for the month.

Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year? What are you working on? Let me know in the comments! If you are doing NaNo, my username on the NaNo site is Indecorous. Feel free to add me as a writing buddy, and drop me a line via NaNo mail. I’m always happy to cheerlead or commiserate!