My 2011 NaNoWriMo project may be… my 2010 project. (a word count update post)

It’s been almost a month since my last works in progress update! I can’t believe September is almost over, you guys. This is insanity.

I thought to schedule posts for while I was away in FL for eBay On Location but then while I was back home but really busy catching up? Nothing. Sorry about that!

I’m almost embarrassed to give you this word count update. This month has flew by and I haven’t had a lot of time to write. Let’s do the potato right up front to get it over with.

I’ve only added about 19,000 words since my last check in a month ago. I’m still not at 300,000. I’ve written only 4,738 words in September and the month ends in a week. Eeeeep!

My class is over now and I plan to write up a comprehensive review of it on the blog in the near future. As for the plays themselves, I need to be able to get some actor friends together for a reading before I can do much more with them and since there is no way in heck I’ll have time to do that before the holidays so the plays are temporarily on the back burner.

Not on the back burner? Asplode! With Mistress Novel out floating around agent and publisher land, I wanted to focus on getting another novel ready to shop. My hope is to be able to finish editing Asplode to give to beta readers in early winter, say February. I voice this goal with some trepidation: Asplode is a MESS. It is a much rougher draft then Mistress Novel was at this point so there is more work to be done. That said, I feel like I learned a ton from editing Mistress Novel so my hope is that the process will be a little easier this time out.

I know. I may eat these words later. But for now? Hope!

Which brings us to the ever closer November and it’s NaNoWriMo and how it fits into this plan. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m going to cheat this year. I’m going to write up until day one of NaNo and then only count the words written in November towards my 50,000. The official rules of NaNo say you have to only start the project on the first but I have much too much writing to do between now and the end of the year to wait. This is actually what I did with Mistress Novel which was part of the reason it was as polished as it was come editing time so I’m hoping to recapture that magic.

Which brings us to the title of this post. As of right now, I plan to write Asplode for my 2011 NaNoWriMo project. Yes, that was last year’s project but I tried to “pants” it and discovered that I am so not a pantser (plotter 4 life, yo!). I also wrote it with the dictation program which made for some very messy sections. I’ve spent a year outlining and figuring the story out and now I want to rewrite it from scratch between now and the end of the year. Since this will be much more of a total rewrite then an edit, it feels like a good fit for NaNoWriMo.

And if by some miracle I finish early? I’ve outlined the new plot for Wife Novel just in case. 😉 Either way, I will be writing at least 50,000 novel words in November.

Oh and Asplode no longer contains an explosion. And has a real title. I’m keeping its nickname the same, however, so I don’t confuse the heck out of you. Though I am confusing the heck out of myself.

In many ways I still feel like I’m playing catch up from eBayOL but things are definitely better this week then last week when I was sick and hated everyone and everything so it’s progress of a sort. But, boy, do I wish there was more of September left. The whole Wedding Anniversary > 5 family birthdays in a row (including my own) > Halloween > NaNoWriMo > Thanksgiving > Christmas while I try to survive the biggest retail season of the year thing kicks my butt Every. Single. Year. I always feel like October through New Years Day is complete insanity and knowing there’s a week before that starts makes me feel like the starting pistol is about to go off while I’m not even in the locker room yet.

Was that a sports metaphor? Man, I should really go to bed…

But I WILL hit 300,000 before this month is over, darn it!