The other one details the progress of whatever 'major' writing project I happen to be dabbling at currently. I'm using this (borrowed in some part from Abigail's blog) more because I think it will help me actually write than because I think you all desperately want to see that little wordcount-number rise by scant increments every few days. It does me good to be able to go in and nudge it up, however so slightly, whether anyone cares to pay attention to it or not.
My current literary-dabble is a complete rewrite of my NaNo10 novel. I did not finish said novel. Over the course of November, I barely eked out 50K before the end of the month, at which point it struck me that if I never had to look at a Microsoft Word screen again, it would be too soon. I think it was so difficult to finish the 50K this year (last year I blew through 100K without any memorable hang-ups) because of a scene four-fifths through. It was a quiet little moment where Barnabas (my poor, dilapidated main character) takes a walk down an empty street and is captivated by the melody of church bells, whereupon he visits the church and has all sorts of Momentous Experiences which never really resolved themselves. But Barney had not reached the church before I suddenly realized that I had got the novel all wrong. I was attacked with the awful suspicion that this scene was supposed to be at the beginning.
Once I began to suspect, it soon became apparent that this suspicion was nothing less than fact. The beginning of the novel, although operating from a very different beginning, made much more sense with Barney making tracks for an old church in an abandoned side of town. But what could I do? I was 38,493 words along (on page 100, to be exact), and I was at that point on the brink of falling behind schedule. I did not have the time to stop and rework the whole thing then and there, though the less rational part of me wished to.
Barney's quiet trek down that street to the church marked the beginning of all real difficulties. Nothing came together plotwise. The story flailed and struggled under my pen. I wrote, but it was with a helpless, hopeless attitude--I knew I would have to rewrite the whole thing anyway.
So, after more than a month of swearing off Microsoft Word and lamenting the fact that I now have fifty thousand words of a novel that is ill-ordered, I've picked up my pen and hobbled somewhat-reluctantly back to the beginning. It's not all horrible. I had a collection of lovely characters, and dear old Barney especially is beginning to show more facets of himself after the respite and rearrangement. I've even worked out a better title for it--maybe.
My goal is to write a little--perhaps only a very little--nearly every day, in spite of nursing school and clinicals and work and my own laziness. The goal of that little is to produce something written each day from which I derive some satisfaction in the job-well-done quarter. And hopefully, in a few decades' time, the novel gets finished, too. Here's to NaNoWriMo, to the fifty thousand words of a plotline written in haste and semi-futility, and to characters that only become more richly colored and deeply drawn the more you twist the scenarios around to fit the storyline. Only time will tell with mine.
You're not the only one with a NaNo that desperately needs help in just about every page; mine is in for a complete rehaul soon. That may or may not make you feel better!
Keep it up, Fellow Scribbler! ^.^
(Oh, by the way, I love your "A Butcher Named Blunt" cover image.)