The After-NaNo Manifesto

Last night, after the glow of happiness dimmed, I realized that I suddenly had a huge NaNo-shaped hole in my heart. I don't have The Big Deadline to work toward, to dream about. I couldn't let it roll around on my tongue like a marble - something hard and tangible. And now...well, now what?

So I looked over my NaNo manifesto. It helped me through many a moment of WTF Am I Going To Do Now, and motivated me. Especially that "I'm going to finish this MF-er" part.

Only...that's the issue now, isn't it? I haven't finished it. I wrote the 50,000 words, but the book is nowhere near done. So I realized at 5am this morning when I finally began to drift off to sleep, that the NaNo-shaped hole has transmogrified into a Novel-shaped hole that can, indeed, be filled.

So, leaving off where I did with the NaNo Manifesto, I have some new rules for my After-NaNo Manifesto.

1. I will finish this story. The story, not just a word count. It's rude as hell to create leave a creature mostly skeletal and minimally fleshed and soulless. Those kinds of creatures have a nasty tendency to haunt and terrorize. Or fester and rot and stink to high hell and kill you that way. So I will finish this story.
   
2. I will attempt to write on this story every day, but will be lenient with my soul if I should miss a few days, especially during holidays.
   
3. I will set word-count goals and celebrate when I make them. Perhaps not 50,000 words per month, though. I'm not writing the Narnia series, here.
   
4. I will maintain the fun. I will work on sections that I want to work on, rather than trying to plow through chronologically.
   

So that's it for now. I'm sure I'll devise more rules as I go, but these are the biggies. 

All the original Manifesto rules still apply. ;)