I decided to record my progress on the NaNo site for the first time yesterday. Because I didn’t bother to record every day’s work (and because I honestly didn’t know which day I did what), I just said I wrote 21k words in the span of an hour on the 12th. It’s obviously untrue, and even the site seems to get that, but I do so enjoy watching that little graph go up, and I like the accountability of the site in general, so I’m just sort of doing my own thing this year.
You might even call me a NaNo Rebel.
Or not because that’s extra nerdy even though it’s an Official Term they use.
Basically, I’m just updating whenever I feel like it with the new word count of The Weary Traveler. I’ve written so much actual new stuff the last couple days that it really does feel like NaNo-ing, but thankfully I’ve got the best skeleton I’ve ever had to work with this time around.
Well, best is relative, I guess. There are so many parts of the original Vacancy serial that are just…bad. Seriously, if you ever took the time to read those, kudos to you! I mean, there are plenty of parts that are meh (and so more easily reworked), and a few lines of dialogue or prose that might make it into the final untouched, but I’m cutting and completely replacing whole scenes and rewriting pretty much everything else. But the outline, after being worked over and twisted about and injected with a proper arc and b-plot over the last few months, is solid, and that’s making this job so much easier.
But when will The Weary Traveler see the light of day? That date seems equally close and far. The work feels like it’s going quickly, and it’s been hella fun expanding the world and roughing up some characters, but I’ve only finished the rewrite of the first act (20%) this morning, so maybe it’s actually going slowly? I’ve done a sort of revision to everything for this book already, but it was deliberately light-handed and quick so I could identify the problems and figure out how to solve them. Now making those solutions material is much more time consuming.
Plus I gotta get my wisdom teeth out next week, so that is going to set me back. Good news though, THEY’RE GOING TO LET ME KEEP THEM. Creepy bone necklace, here I come…
A.K. Caggiano 