NaNoWriMo Madness

When I first heard of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) I thought everyone participating was possibly out of their minds. I mean, who could write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days? Not this writer! Then again, at the time I had been slaving over the same manuscript for ages. I was convinced I first needed a perfect outline and then I needed to edit every chapter before I moved on to the next. Needless to say this method was not working out for me. And I had yet to implement a new method. I needed a change. Yet, I had no idea what that was.

Fast forward to the following year. Yes, I was still slaving over that same manuscript. Yes, I may have possibly been on the third rewrite of said manuscript. A few days before NaNo was set to start I shelved my hated beloved manuscript aside. I shelved it for another more promising manuscript. Then on Twitter, I noticed all of the millions of NaNo tweets. My feed was inundated with madness. I attempted to ignore it. Until one of my twitter pals tweeted me asking if I was planning to join the insanity, less than 48 hours before November 1st.

I read the tweet, shook my head, and thought "are you crazy?" Fifteen minutes later I had talked myself into joining the insane masses. Not only had I convinced myself to attempt this madness, I had also decided to pull that dreaded manuscript back off the shelf and rewrite it for the fourth time.This time I was going to fly by the seat of my pants and write what felt right. No outline needed this time.

No, I didn't hit the 50,000 word mark, but I did complete a rough draft that was manageable. It also gave me back my confidence. I knew what worked best for me. I needed to keep writing straight through without stopping to edit. That's where I was losing my momentum. I also learned that I do need an outline. A good outline. And that took me some more time to figure out. And the second year I participated, I did hit the word count. And it was a well outlined manuscript. I have now found my process.

This year I am rewriting that original manuscript, yet again, for NaNoWriMo. I'm doing it with a nice clean outline. One that has been poured over for a full month before the writing madness descends upon us. I've also taken out all of the vampires. *cough, cough* It's also no  longer a YA, but rather a NA this time around, as it was on the second or third rewrite. I forget now. Either way, I'm joining the insanity once again.

Now the question is, who is with me this year?