Is November really just right around the corner? That means another NaNoWriMo. And I’m not even finished with the revision that I’ve been working on most of the summer.
I’ve thought about it of and on, whether or not I’ll actually participate this year. I have six works currently in progress. One has been revised multiple times, another has been revised twice. Two were just written last year and one of those is the revision I’ve been working on sporadically through this past summer. The other two–the 2008 and 2009 novels–are still sitting in their rough draft mess. I’ve tried rewriting the 2008 novel two or three times with no success. The other one I’ve read, but haven’t done any more than that. What I’m getting at here is that I have plenty on my plate without adding another rough draft to the mix this year.
However, it’s very, very hard to let a November pass without writing. Just thinking about it makes me uncomfortable. It’s like a wasted opportunity, and one that only comes once a year. On the other hand, I have no new ideas for this year. (That wasn’t a problem last year. The book I wrote in 9 days with zero prep has to be one of the best put together and tightest books I’ve ever written, certainly as a first draft!)
What I’ve thought about doing is the rewrite of Mancunian Waltz (the 2008 novel). It needs a complete rewrite, from beginning to end. This was the 150k monster that I actually planned for several months before November. (It tells me something about my writing process that a book that I so neatly planned for so long is the biggest mess of them all. While the one with no planning and that took 9 days to write is the cleanest…) For all that planning, the rough draft is full of false starts. It gets better in the second half, but the first half is completely trash. I am just having a hard time accepting doing a re-write as a valid way to spend a NaNo-November. :-/
See, I have a real hard time writing outside of November. I’ve had success doing a re-write outside of November, but this one isn’t cooperating. Maybe doing it in November will give me the extra push that it does for rough drafts. Maybe I have to consider it a second rough draft. There’s a thought. Since the first rough draft is such a mess (I kept changing my mind, changing the backstory, changing all sorts of things without actually going back and rewriting…) I could consider this another rough draft. Consider the first one a detailed outline. That’s definitely a thought, and making me feel better about the whole thing. It doesn’t solve the problem of nothing NEW written in a November, though. That’s the part that’s bugging me! 
I had thought about writing the story of one of the other characters from my second 2011 novel (the one I wrote in 9 days). Maybe I’ll have 9 days to write it, if I finish Mancunian Waltz early?
I do feel awkward posting a word count for a rewrite. I suppose I can just call myself a NaNoRebel this year. I think I’ve made up my mind. 
Now the question is how long I keep on working on the revision of Love Bytes before I set it aside and focus my thoughts on Jen and Reese. Emma and Mike haven’t been entirely cooperative, but then I’ve been fairly negligent…
