This year, the first session of Camp NaNoWriMo is in April, but I don’t think I will participate, even with such features as custom word count, cabins of fellow writers, and a very attractive website.
The main reason I’m not participating is because work on STEPHEN has come to a standstill. I realized I cannot go forward with the narrative unless I look backward, and to do that, I had to unearth character backstories from two years before the actual events of STEPHEN take place. Because STEPHEN is the first book in the series, it is in a way the most important, because it will set up the events of the second book, third book, and so forth. You know, laying a strong foundation and all that…
In essence, I am compiling all the information about this series that I have accumulated over the years into a story bible. I’m also writing out a long, in-depth summary of each book in the series and how the plot and characters change. This is helping me see where I’m going (and where I had once gone before and written myself into a corner). At this point, I’m more or less going backward and forward through the series at the same time.
Doing all that digging gave me the inspiration for a few other stories, but I don’t want to write an entirely new story until I have figured out all the others I have already written. If anything, I’ll wait until the traditional NaNoWriMo in November before I attempt anything new. I’ve already got enough on my plate as it is. :)
