I am experiencing what I should have expected: the post Nano slump. As well as the Holidays fast approaching. Not writer’s block, because I have a whole lot of ideas of changes I need to make. But having a hard time finding the will to actually do it, and my schedule has been filling up lately.
While I love the idea of NanoWrimo, I sometimes wonder at the wisdom of having it be in November. In the states we have Thanksgiving, and before someone has recovered December comes along which is busy for everyone.You could probably argue the pros and cons of any month, and December would be worse, but I wonder if having Nanowrimo toward the end of the year is part of the challenge. I have tried to do a mini-Nano by my lonesome, but without the entire writing company focused on Nano it is hard to keep momentum.
As far as actual revision I have done, I had two events taking place a few days apart that I decided to move to the same night so my protagonist doesn’t have time to recover and it keeps the momentum going. This means a little blocking– how I get from one event to the other, and how my character physically gets to the different places. I think it will make a tighter story in the end, but it also means having to work through some new details.
Some general writing advice from the weekend writer has been helpful in revision is the idea of focusing on key plot points. Its much easier to take a section and focus on getting from this point to this point, and realizing what details need to be worked out in other sections for it to make sense and have impact.
Starting to wonder if deadlines really work. The problem I keep on having is while I can pull out chunks and say “I’ll get this done in a week” telling myself I’ll be done in a month does not work. All I can do is keep going. I doubt I will ever be one of the fastest writer’s alive, but I hope to at least not be the slowest writer alive.