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Well, as you can see by the widget on my sidebar I’m not caught up yet, but I am feeling better about NaNo. I became a little worried this weekend when I still hadn’t made 1667 a day – never mind catching up – but I seem to have found a steady writing rhythm again, even if it’s not a particularly quick one. Part of the problem is that I never intended to write this story as a NaNo Novel – I always planned to take my time with it. The other part of the problem is that I really wanted to finish editing Fie Eoin because I now have a small mob of people gnashing their teeth for the next chapter. And the third part is that I didn’t really care about Sean. And that was really killing my writing.
You see, I storylined straight through this book and into the sequel, and in the sequel Sean is a horrible person. He blames the Forgetters for what happens at the end of Book of Souls (which I can’t spoil for you, obviously) and goes on a complete killing rampage. So the only Sean I’ve ever known is confused little boy Sean that goes straight into murderous rampage Sean. I had a vague idea who he was in his last life, but I never really explored that until NaNo started. So I started off the month with a POV character that I didn’t care about, but who was vital to the story.
What do you know, that doesn’t really work for me. So I went back to his last life and figured out what happened. And Sean was not a bad guy in his last life – he was actually a pretty decent fellow who had a horrible death. And he’s a pretty decent guy as a confused kid, too. And then last night he told a little lie to someone in charge of the army and the Rebecca in me fell in love. Now, instead of forcing myself to write his scenes I actually want to. I want to see what’s next for this kid between horrible death and eventual murderer. I want to know what really makes him tick. I care.
Do you care about your characters? Finding that “save the cat” moment may be just what you need to get your NaNo butt in gear.
And don’t forget to visit the others in the NaNo Blogchain! Their sage wisdom (and lamentations!) sure helped me out on Day 4 when I felt like giving up.