NaNoing

Good, solid forward movement on the NaNo book yesterday.  I've still not caught up to where I should be on the graph, but seeing as I don't work on weekends and I missed the first three days.  -shrug-  I'll be there by the end.  And I'm in no hurry.  The story flows as the story goes.

However, one of my writing-rough-draft tips saved my butt yesterday.  When I write rough draft, I make it a practice to never go back into a chapter I've finished, even if I want to make major changes.  What I will do is briefly open the file back up and jot down the changes I want to make in that big white space I always leave at the beginning of the chapter, and then proceed onto the next chapter as if I had made those changes.   Hey, I make things up for a living.  It's easy to pretend.

This novel is no exception, and as I began my dialog for chapter three late yesterday, I found the few notes I penciled in the day before (for changes I wanted to make in chapter one) were now useless.  After moving forward another step, I found I needed bigger things, such as an additional character, I had to change how someone dies, and I found the way to begin the betrayal I'd already planned on, but in a much stronger, faster way.  Had I taken yesterday and worked my original, now useless, changes in, my word count for the day would have been very near zero, and all for nothing as I have since thrown them out for something better.

Even though I have practice doing this, (making notes of what I want to change and then moving on as if I'd done it) it is hard.  I very much like knowing exactly what I'm working with, especially when it comes to emotion.  But I also know that I'm going to be going over this thing three or four more times, bare minimum.  I can fix it then.  Like Anakin Skywalker's mom says, "Never look back."  And to that, I would add on, "Until you reach the end and start over."  And who knows.  I might get into chapter five and discover that the new person I need in chapter one works better if she's a woman, or someone that Taylor already knows, or should be two people, or that the one guy really didn't have to die.  No harm, no foul.  Lots of words on the page mean lots more toys to play with.

Happy NaNoing!