Good evening fellow writers (and also readers, of course!  This blog will be directed more toward the writers, though). 

Ever have one of those days (or weeks) when the characters from your story won't get out of your head?  No, those voices don't make you schizo, but at worse they can give you quite a headache.  That's what's happened to me this week. I actually missed work today due to a migraine--which I mostly blame on the change in the weather/air pressure and probably the overdose of coffee yesterday, but to some extent I think my NaNoWriMo novel characters might have had a little to do with it, too. 

It's been about two weeks since I completed the National Novel Writing Month challenge.  Every advice blog or tweet I've read has suggested that I shelve the novel for at least a month or so and either catch up on my reading or begin work on a new writing project.  As much as I'd love to do that, my characters have other plans.

I've spent a week tirelessly reading and re-reading sections of my manuscript and each time I've given up in frustration because something about it just doesn't feel right.  Something's missing.  I started doing research on art galleries (the setting for the story) to see if I could jog my creativity and find the missing link.  And  in a way, it's worked--but it's also opened a whole new can of worms--or, rather, new characters.

This is what's given me such a headache--I've had the plot to this story mapped out in my mind for quite some time, and I created a pretty solid outline before I began working on the manuscript last month.  Now suddenly there are several new characters barking at me at all hours, insisting they belong in the story, too.  I don't even know where they came from, but they won't go away.  Now I find myself wracking my brain to come up with a way to fit them into novel without compromising my original vision.  

As you might expect, that's virtually impossible.

That brings me to the point of this rant.  As writers, is anyone else too stubborn to change their plot sometimes?  Try as I might to keep it the way it originally was, I'm starting to get on board with the new plot/details that these new characters bring to the table.  It's been a slow, painful process, trying to fully understand their roles and where they'll fit in--but after a week of wrestling with it, I've decided to surrender to the story.  

See, what it all boils down to is this: The story's not mine (it's my intellectual property, of course, but it's not mine).  It's theirs.  The characters.  The people who live in the world I'm creating.  Sometimes, as writers, I think we forget that.  We try to stick to our original plot because it seemed so perfect and brilliant when we first thought of it--but sometimes, to make a good story--one that (I hope!) is worth reading--we've got to let it evolve.  Let it run its course.  And that often requires the introduction of people, places, or events into the plot that weren't there in your original outline--or even your original draft. 

So, beginning tomorrow, I will listen to those characters.  I'll work them into the second draft, and I'll make the necessary changes to make them fit into the world I've created.  I'll put my ego aside and surrender to the story. And my manuscript will be all the better for it. 

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The above might make me sound a little like a crazy person, but I'm sure a lot of you as writers have been there before.  Has anyone else had trouble surrendering to your story recently?  Are you re-writing your NaNoWriMo novel to include new characters and events?  I'd love to hear about your experiences!

Well, people, it's been a while. It was a long month--probably the busiest month I've had in recent years--but I made it.  I "won" my first National Novel Writing Month  challenge!  *cue applause*

Please, please, you're too kind.  Anyway, all kidding aside, I've got to admit I'm pretty proud of myself.  Last month, despite having to pack, move to a new house, unpack (mostly, anyway--still not finished!), attend a funeral, and cook for Thanksgiving (and that's not even mentioning all the new and stressful projects I began at my day job), I somehow managed to crank out over 50,000 words--a personal best for me, considering that my only other lengthy fiction (approx. 76K words) took me 10 months to complete. Of course, you don't accomplish a feat like that without learning a few things along the way. So, now that I've crossed the finish line and have had a few days to catch my breath (and allow my poor typing fingers to heal from the long hours spent in a furious typing frenzy), here are a few things--some old, tried and true tips, and some new and unexpected ones--that I learned during my first NaNoWriMo challenge.

1.)It's okay to take a day off from writing--but be prepared to work that much harder to make up for it.
Most authors/writers will tell you: If you want to be a writer, you *must* write every day.  I've always been inclined to agree with them. How can you improve your technique if you don't put it into daily practice, right?

Still, I will admit that I did not write every single day of this challenge.  To be honest, I probably only wrote for three-fourths of the month (making it all the more miraculous to me that I actually made it through). It wasn't that I was being lazy or had writer's block (though believe me, there were days when I had it bad!), it was because there were simply days when I couldn't make myself write.  Like I mentioned before, I had other things going on outside of my writing life that were tied to more responsibility than a self-challenge, and on about five or six days I found myself stretched too thin and far too stressed to make time to produce content. 

Sure, tons of people say you shouldn't worry about the content of your NaNo project--the goal for most is to simply reach the word count goal and have at least most of a first draft completed by the end of the month.  If I'd wanted to just write fluff on those days to reach the word goal, I suppose I could've done it.  However, I recognized that there were days when I was too stressed to crank out anything of even half-decent quality, and as I'd start to try and push through, I'd always find myself even more stressed about how bad the story was becoming.

It was for these reasons that I decided to take a day or two off when needed to be with family, or unpack a few boxes, or do some Black Friday shopping.  I know that NaNoWriMo is supposed to feel like a simulation of what an author's life is like under a deadline, but sometimes even for some of those authors it's necessary to take a day off.  The important thing is to not let a day off here or there derail you from your determination to accomplish you're goal.  Don't get two or three days behind at a time--you'll have to work that much harder to catch back up. 

2. If you *really* write with abandon, you're going to open an even bigger can of worms than you originally anticipated. 
Going into this challenge, I had an outline for about half of the story.  I had a full plot, but I was having trouble connecting the beginning to the end with a complete and logical middle. Once I accomplished that middle, I'd be wrapping up the story of my protagonist, Darcy, for good.  While the premise of the book is one that I fell in love with from the beginning and was chomping at the bit to start writing by the end of October, I knew where it was going from the first moment--and that was all going to be neatly wrapped up in a one-book package. 
  
The thing is, when you have to reach a deadline in a very short period of time, even if you *are* striving to keep the content up to a certain level of quality, you're still going to take a few risks and branch out on a few new paths and subplots in order to keep your words flowing.  I created a few side mysteries, twists, and character development scenes that I'd never considered during my planning phase, and even went as far as to surpass the 50K word goal by writing an ending to the novel that morphed into the beginning of a second.  Suddenly I find that Darcy Harbinger's world is a lot larger and more complicated than even I could have originally imagined.  I have ideas for at least two more books now, making my now completed rough draft the first in a series.  My only concern now is whether I dive into the next book after I edit this one or instead work on my Amelia Grace series and write the Darcy series each year as my NaNoWriMo project?

3.  Stay away from your other works!
I only focused on the writing of my NaNo project during most of the month of November (hence the lack of blog posts), but as luck would have it, I reached my word count goal on the same day that my editor sent back my first manuscript for "Murder At Castle Rock."  Of course I wrote the last scene of my NaNo novel in a hurry once I realized my long-awaited first critique of my manuscript was just sitting in my inbox, waiting to be opened.  I finished the project and literally opened my other manuscript within the same minute!

While the editor had a lot of good comments (yay!), there were still two or three sections that required a little bit of re-writing.  No problem, right? Wrong.
I was so wrapped up in the project I was just finishing that I couldn't switch gears back to the style of the first work.

My main characters from each work, Amelia and Darcy, are somewhat similar.  Both have a little bit of snark and a lot of heart.  Still, there is a definite difference in tone between the two and how they tell their story.  Amelia is a bit more light-hearted and witty whereas Darcy is not exactly "doom and gloom" but she's led a darker life and is a bit drier than Ame.  I was so immersed in Darcy's personality that I caught myself writing Amelia's lines in "Murder At Castle Rock" in her voice.  Luckily I wasn't too far into my re-writing process and was able to back track and reconnect with the tone of my first work, but as a result I will always give myself at least a few days to disconnect from the voice of one work before I begin work on another. If you get as connected to your characters as I do, I suggest you do the same.

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There are quite a few more things I learned or reaffirmed during my crazy writing spree in November (like how coffee is my best friend and I write better after a drink or two), these are the biggest three things that really hit home with me during my NaNoWriMo experience. 

Did you participate in NaNoWriMo?  If so, did you accomplish you're goal?  What did you write about and what important writing lessons did you teach yourself along the way?  I'd love to hear about it!