I have come to an important decision regarding my Nano novel. Namely, that when I am finished with the 50,000 words, it is going to be put aside.
I actually made this decision a few nights ago, and it’s been a struggle not to stop writing since. After all, there’s revisions on The Recruited to do, and The Lost to finish, not to mention new ideas that will probably get dealt with in due time. Why, I kept asking myself, make time to actually write 50,000 words of something that’s going to be abandoned or scrapped later?
Well, there are a couple reasons. For one thing, this piece, Best Intentions, started out as a short story. And, in my opinion, and the opinions of people over at it was a pretty damn good short story. For the first time ever, I found that, in expanding the piece, I compromised a lot of the things that made the short story work. Though I didn’t think that would bother me, it really does.
But I’m getting off track. Basically, the only reason I’m not quitting Nano is because I’m vain. I don’t want to cop to giving up on the event, even if I totally picked the wrong story to work on and nobody would begrudge me if I did. Nobody, of course, except myself.
Does this mean that Best Intentions will be finished? The answer is: probably not. Because as far as I’m concerned, it was finished the day I got the short story done. There wasn’t anymore work necessary.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go finish today’s word count and then work on The Recruited.