Thursday, October 30, 2008

~ rebel without a pause ~

With only 2 days 'til kick-off, I have decided to NaNo again this year. I blame my insanity on him and her - they made me want to do it. However, recognizing that I will be busy with the craft fair this month and acknowledging that last year felt very successful even though I didn't "win", I have decided to participate as a NaNo Rebel and continue working on the novel I started last year.

I don't want to loose the enthusiasm and spontaneity of NaNoWriMo by getting too caught up in character development, but the truth is the characters and their inner-workings are what make this story. I'm not revisiting the novel to get bogged down in editing and perfecting - I promise to maintain the spirit of the event. What I am going to attempt is some extemporaneous character development, focusing primarily on my two main characters and dabbling with a few of the supporting characters.

To make it fun and fluid while still staying on track, I'm going to type up a bunch of questions from Toben & Joanne Heim's What's Your Story? and stick them in a jar. (This is one of my all time favorite resources for anything and everything.) Whenever I get stuck, I'll just pull out a question and explore it from each character's perspective. I'm hoping to discover things about the characters and their story I had not expected.
Personal Commitments:
1. I will not kick myself for not hitting 2,000 words a day
2. I will not try to stuff my characters into a mold
3. I will allow the process to be fun, not stressful
4. I will enjoy the opportunity to climb out of my rut
5. I will not let all this rebellion go to my head

3 comments:

Kimberly said...

Ha! I just reread my announcement from last year & I have exactly the same distractions/excuses! Which should mean... I have no excuses! :)

Ramón said...

Game on!

Unknown said...

looking forward to it. and, yes, the future tense here means that on this THIRD day of november, i have yet to write a thing... how did i ever get a master's in this field???