Alright, ladies and gents. I know it's only halfway through October, but I've been gearing up for National Novel Writing Month since - like - May. Now it's only a couple of weeks away and I'm gettin' giddy. I've been batting around a story idea in my head and I'm newly armed with wisdoms gleaned from my past attempts. This year I'm pretty much a captive author so I will have little to do but write.
I haven't "won" a NaNoWriMo yet, and for a few good reasons. Last year I was dealing with the death of my mother and then a knee injury, so I just couldn't focus. The year before I was rudely interrupted by thesis revisions. But my biggest nemesis is myself: my tendency to edit as I go and second guess every inch of plot. Basically, I'm scared that my stories are too predictable, too Been There Done That. My love of storytelling loses all its warm glow and turns into a cudgel with which I beat my brains. Not to mention that, should I decide I need to go a different direction that requires some revision to the previous storyline, I feel I have to go back and fix what I've already written for the sake of continuity. Not exactly conducive to meeting word count goals.
This year I'm toying with time manipulation and post-apocalypse-punk. Not Mad Max. More in the steampunk vein, but including technology from a lot of different time periods from updated siege engines to bombers to mind-manipulation and time-manipulation tech. To be honest, I'm just exploring all the different off-shoots of steampunk for kicks and giggles. Last year I tried very hard to write something serious and deep and significant. To hell with that.
As a matter of fact, that's my motto for this year's Nano novel. What the hell, sounds like fun!
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