NaNoWriMo Rebels

I recently learned about a group that calls itself NaNoWriMo Rebels. These are folks that don’t fit into the 50,000 words a month criteria. They are poets, bloggers, plotters, and … The Rebels suggest participants set their own goals, like I did this past week. They also suggest that if you meet your particular goal, then log in the 1,167 words for the day. Because you met your goal. However you decide to participate, make it a successful event. The real goal is to have participants form the habit of sitting in their seat and writing every day.

In my last blog I mentioned things were going well for me until about the 20,000 word mark. It was then I had to stop and rework the first chapters. I needed a strong base from which to continue the story, and I hadn’t accomplished that. I have worked the last few days in figuring out what exactly the story is about. I had too many things going on, and the flow was interrupted by switching characters and switching settings. I had to remove several chapters at the beginning because they didn’t feel right. I pasted them at the end, because I still want the characters, but they will come in later and I will be able to show rather than tell.

My day is made when I read a blog that says everything I feel and wish I had said better! Today is that day. One of the blogs I follow is TheKill Zone, and the entry from November 20 by Clare Langley-Hawthorne was why NaNoWriMo wasn’t working for her—for all the same reasons it isn’t working for me.