NaNoWriMo 2009 – Day 1
1098 words
Last night, after the Nano Kickoff event, before I went to sleep, I came to a decision: I’m going to use the first day or so of November to finish the Horse Girl project.
This makes me even more of a “Nano Rebel” than I was before with my short story collection approach, since the “spirit of Nano” is start a new project instead of working on an existing project.
I figure, though, I’m an adult. I can change the rules if I want. 
I’m participating in Nano to help re-establish my writing habit, which was rather thoroughly left behind (beaten and bruised) by my death march to complete The Journal 5. Hitting 50K words in November is a secondary goal. More important to me is getting back into writing on a regular basis. I haven’t written regularly since early 2008. And that seems like a long, long time ago.
Further, I know that one of the other, non-software-project reasons for my lack of regular writing has been the still-incomplete Horse Girl project. It’s been 90% complete since the summer of 2007.
And I’m pretty sure that what’s been stopping me on Horse Girl is simply (agonizingly) self doubt.
I’ve mentioned that before: Doubts about my “qualifications” to write the story. Doubts about how I had originally plotted the story. Doubts about how to change the story. Doubts about how to end it. Doubts doubts doubts.
I came very close to finishing it today (1098 words closer).
My plan is to see how many words I add tomorrow in a sort of “second draft” of the last chapter (chapter 12). There are a few parts that I feel are a bit abrupt, and could use some more detail.
Later today, I’ll post chapter 11 of Horse Girl (which has been done for a while now).
-David
November 1st, 2009 at 9:55 pm
You can always invoke the Zokutou clause: http://www.megstout.com/blog/2008/10/17/nanowrimo-approaches/
I did this last year to work on finishing up my 2006 NaNo project. Of course, I didn’t finish until the first or second week of December, so I still didn’t win. But finishing that book was a huge relief.
November 1st, 2009 at 10:11 pm
I hadn’t heard of that particular clause. Funny.
I don’t expect it will take me more than another few days (if that) to finish Horse Girl. (Which is part of what makes it so frustrating that I haven’t finished it before now. I’ve been so close to being done with it for a long time.)
Then I get to figure out what I’m doing with the rest of the month. Maybe I pursue my “winging it” plan…or maybe I try to finish what I started with Nano 2007. (Because I hate unfinished projects.)
-David