The Confabulators have been meeting once a month for the last several years. Every November, they’re the core group of WriMos who encourage others to sit down and write 50,000 words in a month. The local message board is rife with taunts, excerpts, questions and support that I’m sure happens in every region for National Novel Writing Month.
We like to think our group is special because we don’t just write in November. We started the Cafe to share our enthusiasm with the rest of the world. This last November we had several successes. Among them, one of the books completed during NaNoWriMo is going to be published. This barista can’t tell you whose it was or when or where it will be published, but maybe you’ll find a hint here in the Ephemera question for this week: Are you editing your NaNoWriMo novel?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Ahuh. Sorry. Ahem. Yes, I’m editing my NaNoWriMo novel. I laugh because I had intended to have a real first draft done and out to my sharp-eyed friends who would so kindly read it. Obviously I don’t have that done yet, but I am in the process of trying to get to that point. I can offer all kinds of excuses (and you can read them on my blog) but I’m diving headfirst into in come April 1. Ask me again in a month how it’s going.
Yes, I’m editing my 2011 NaNo book. I’ve gone through it in hard copy and wrote a long, act by act treatment/synopsis to find the holes, explore what to expand on, and determine ways to raise the stakes for the various plot lines and characters. I’ve gotten some great feedback from the few readers that would put up with the super-rough NaNo draft. Now I need to get busy rewriting so I can send it out for more. It’s going to take awhile to revise to my satisfaction, but I love this story. Wish me luck!
Not yet. I have a strict rule that I will not edit without writing something else in between as a palette cleanser. With Script Frenzy being in April, a screenplay will allow me a complete mental break from my novel. My plan is to start editing Kill Creek Road in May, and hopefully have it ready for submission by the end of the Summer.
As of right now, no, am not editing my NaNo novel. I want to. Someday. It deserves the attention. I received invaluable feedback and a great deal of encouragement from my fellow writing group members for it. So I plan to. When the thought of revising it doesn’t make me want the throw up anymore, I will.
If I said, “yes” I would be lying. If I said “no” I would equally be lying. A better response to whether I’m editing my NaNoWriMo novel would be that I’m trying. I’ll get a solid week of editing in before I get distracted by something… anything. It’s a bad sign when cleaning the litterbox is more appealing than editing. I keep telling myself I will dive back into the editing process–I’ve already gone through and made the edits on paper, I just have to type them up–but it’s really hard to get motivation. Especially when there are books to read… and reread.
Am I editing my NaNoWriMo novel? No. I’m still writing the first draft. 🙂
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