“I’m not doing Nanowrimo this year,” I told my writing group and every writing friend that I have. “I’m going to spend the energy and time on rewriting a story that I love and believe in. But I’ll cheer you on!”

So I opened my Nanowrimo profile and made this cover (because I like making covers even if they look cheesy and are destined for that crappy covers website):

I figured that by re-firing up my profile I could keep up with my Nanobuddies, and when I added new words to the manuscript, I would log them. No way would I hit 50K this month, but I didn’t have anything to prove to myself there. I’ve done it for the last four years in increasingly quick time, with increasingly improved crap going down on the page. But that wordcount graph bar being empty makes me sad.

I wasn’t playing, I was just an active observer quietly cheering from the mist.

But then I saw a notecard sitting on the top of a pile of notecards that I have with story ideas on them. This card has the shortest idea of them all, and it’s not the most recent- but for some reason it’s the one on the top.

It wouldn’t hurt to just start a story, right? I mean, I had no intentions of finishing and reaching 50K- but you know, just to have a little fun. No pressure. The main focus is on the manuscript that I love and am rewriting.

Which I have done. I am kicking ass on rewriting it. I’m kicking ass and having a blast and remembering why I loved it in the first place. I love rewriting. The slicing and the dicing and the neatening and the adding and more word slayings…it’s so energizing!

But…heh heh…I also have got 3K words down on the new one.

Which I’m sort of loving even though I didn’t have more than this on the note card a week ago:

Original notecard, with new one behind it

And I made a cover because I like making cheesy covers.

Nanoname: EssephVee

30 days, 50K words and a rewrite.

And life away from the keyboard.

uh, yeah…I can do that.

I guess I’m playing.

(Also if I don’t post much on here, that’s where I’ll be.)

EDITED IN DECEMBER- Like a lot of things this past year, I failed to finish. For the very first time in 4 years.. What I  learned: to stick with my first instinct. Plus side: I have an outline, characters and a cute, chick-lit story partially written. Now to finish the sweet, women’s lit that I’m STILL rewriting then I can get back to that one.
Susan