Day 5: NaNo Recap!

I figured I should eventually do a NaNoWriMo recap, for all of those who have been asking me this last month how it all went. The answer is... it went well. Ish. Yeah. Something like that.

A little vague? That's mostly because I felt like the whole month was very surreal. But let me start at the beginning.

I began the month with a title, a setting and two sorta-characters and the need for a third one ASAP. The basic premise of the book is: Verona, or V for short, opened a bar with her best friend Craig after getting a surprise inheritance. It's geared towards geeky people, with a whole game room in the back that's set up to hold anything from a Tabletop Night to a LAN Party to an old-school Mario Kart 64 tournament. There's a One Ring bar, complete with the dark runes, a massive TARDIS in one corner, and all sorts of other themed tables and decorations. Themed drinks, food, etc. It's basically heaven for anyone who considers themselves part of a fandom.

All this serves as the backdrop for V to meet tons of people, which is her favorite thing. She has a reputation as a talented matchmaker, often helping regulars get the jumpstart in their relationships. But she has kept herself to a strict no-dating-customers policy, and since she never does anything besides work, she never meets anyone. She's content with just hanging out with Craig, whom she's known since they were 5, and who has been her best and sometimes only friend through thick and thin. And also sorta her boyfriend that one summer but they don't talk about that...

In walks Mo. He's this smooth, David Tennant look-alike, who comes to the bar's big Halloween party and immediately sweeps V off her feet, causing her to throw her rules and caution to the wind and see what happens with this guy... Until it all goes wrong.

Most of this plot I came up with after November had already started, which is not usually how I like to write. I at least like to have the end sorted out before I start, so I have a place I'm going even if I take a different route to get there.

That was the thing with this book. I was more successful than my last attempt to mostly pants a book (for those who are not familiar with NaNo terminology, pantsing is writing without a plan, or "flying by the seat of your pants"). The last time I tried this, it was an unmitigated disaster. I won that month, but just barely, and I still haven't had the guts to go back and read the thing to see what might be salvageable. So at least this year, I think what I wrote has potential. But it's mostly that. Potential.

What actually happened was that I had a pretty good idea and then somehow over the course of the month it became something completely different: a Romance book. *dun dun dun* This was not at all my intention, nor was it really a great direction for the book to take considering the characters. I have this habit of creating awesome characters who are nice and flawed and them making them do things that make no sense, so that everything ties up really nicely. I'm working on it. To be fair to myself, I told myself that I was just doing this month for fun to take a break from last years NaNo novel which I am currently attempting to edit. Still, I was hoping my "just for fun" would include a little more reality than what this ended up with. Whatever.

So that's the recap. I won, and I won a week early because I had some freakishly good writing days. Also the knowledge that my life was probably going to get crazy in December (new job, anyone?) so I should probably get more than a couple of days of recovery time in. This led to the last marathon day that pushed me over the finish line after 7500 words in one day, and also marked the last words I wrote that month because I decided I needed to go sit in a corner and think about what I'd done.

Who knows if this book will ever see the light of day. I'm thinking it will, after some pretty heavy rewriting. That will be a ways down the road though, because my focus is Dragons and Glass Slippers from last year. Which will hopefully have at least the first bit published in e-book form by next year. That's the goal. We'll see how much I actually get around to editing.