The Novel: Which Novel?

So…I kind of have a reputation for being a starter and not a finisher, especially when it comes to writing. I lack the ability to resist the next bright, shiny thing. I have a lot of ideas that I get excited about, and I have a hard time sticking with previous projects, making revisions, and god forbid actually going through the slog of submissions. I realize that this is foolish because I have a lot of great stories that I should attempt to put out into the world, but this is just the way I am.

All through October, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what to do with National Novel Writing Month this year. My logical brain is telling myself to finish my existing novel and get it ready to query. But my personality brain is telling myself to start a new project because it’s fun and exciting. Unsurprisingly, the “squirrel!” part of my brain won out. I can always finish my other novel later…or not.

But to be fair, the novel I’m going to work on this month isn’t actually new. It was from an idea I had five years ago and actually spent a lot of time developing. More than I even remembered. When I opened the project in Scrivener a few weeks ago, I was shocked at how much I had written and plotted out. I am changing the protagonist from college aged to a high school aged since the contemporary young adult genre seems to work well for me, but I think the majority of the plot still works.

I doubt I will keep any of the writing though. Given all that I learned in my Lighthouse workshops last winter about writing YA, I think that the best approach in picking this back up is to do the scene writing from scratch. I did a lot of work with character development and motivations in October, and I’m ready to pound out 50,000 words!

Once again, I’ll be off social media for the most part—Facebook, for sure, and only on Twitter occasionally—to help keep myself on track. If you are taking part in NaNoWriMo, find my profile at JenSeriously. And if you’re in Boulder, let’s schedule some writing dates together!