The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

So ya’ll know I do this at least once a year. I haven’t been writing or editing or livin’ my dreams, and I just let the blog go. We’ve been there. We’ve done that. Let us just get on to the blog post and forget the unpleasantness, shall we?

It’s that time again. The most wonderful time of the year. Christmas? Christmas you say? No. November. More specifically, NaNoWriMo. You know it. You love it. I am actually calling this: NaNoWriMo – The Return Of The Revenge. Because I figured this year’s endeavor needed a title. I attempted to do Camp NaNo in June…. July? What was it? I don’t remember. The less said about that dark and miserable time the better. It was a total fail. I got about 8k but that was it. So yes, I am a NaNo Rebel this year – I am not starting fresh as the driven snow – like I have every other time. My goal is still to write 50K during the month of November, which I hope will be done by the 25th. Another simple truth I am ceding this year: I never write after Thanksgiving….thank God it is at the very last of the month this time. Going up into high altitude and trying to eat my weight in turkey and gravy sucks all my drive and drivel… I come back from my sister’s house and languish.

So this year – I should probably have titled it The Year of Living Sheepishly but that might seem even weirder and more out of context than The Return  of the Revenge. Let me try to explain. I’m thinking bombastic movie title. Like the first was just NaNoWriMo. In that movie, last November, I intended to write a whole novel in 30 days – 3k a day, 90k minimum for the month. That was what I was aiming for. I got more than 80k ad “won” but I didn’t finish the book that month. I don’t think I was done until  February. 

The next year – or rather, next NaNo which was actually Camp NaNo was: NaNoWriMo: The Revenge, when I planned another gothic romance. I only wanted 50k, but I was going to outline the crap out of it and be all writery and stuff. I hadn’t written or done much editing since June. Well. It didn’t happen. I couldn’t figure out what I wanted the story to be, I couldn’t fill in the lines of that outline I wanted and gave up after a few days, sinking back into my former misery and dissipation. 

So this one is NaNoWriMo: the Return of the Revenge – and I am back. Despite the very awesome title, I am not going forward with any major, grand thems. All I want is 50k added to the failed attempt from the NaNo-That-Wasn’t during the summer. An entire novel is not required. Nor is a tight, thrumming outline, strung with glitter and ribbon. I just want to write 2k. Every day. Get back in the groove and feel like a writer again. Today is officially the end of the first week and I have written 2k every day. Probably one of the worst beginnings of any novel I’ve written because I’m so rusty, but I don’t care. I don’t know where this thing is going, if it is sellable, if it is even going to have paranormal elements. I don’t know. The hero is a vampire. What is he doing there if this is just a Victorian romance? I don’t know. I have an orphan heiress. I have the most crumbly and  decrepit house that ever was for the setting. I have a mystery and a bloody dagger. A maid that I don't trust farther than I can throw her. I am just trying to tell myself a story, keep my modest goals and not be too hard on myself. So for all that the Return of the Revenge sounds like a superhero movie, I’m not exactly saving a major metropolis from the scourge of the universe. 

I’m saving that for next year.