For several years I've been a bit of a NaNoWriMo rebel, taking the month as an added incentive to revise existing projects rather than tackle new ones. It's not because I don't like working on new material, but there are priorities to consider.
Last year I was working on revisions to the Steampunk Novel. This year I started the month finishing up a novella I'd started in September. (Finished on Monday at 34k! Woot!) Now I'm focusing on the first draft of a new novel I'm hoping to finish before Christmas.
I've always found that moving between projects is a little challenging. Usually there's a period of down time in which I try and figure out what to work on next. (Like every other writer under the sun, my list of possible projects is ridiculous. I could write for years just finishing up all the ideas I have today.) There's also a shift in creative energy as I transition between that final dig to finish something up to the wilder and (usually) more optimistic period of figuring out what exactly I'm doing with the new project. And, any time I'm not writing every day it's always harder to pick it back up again (the same as it is with breaking and reestablishing any routine).
This time I knew what I wanted to work on and I was fairly settled into a writing routine; the biggest challenge would be finding the energy to start a new project right on the heels of the last.
But this time, I had a plan. On November 1st, I started working on the new project before I had finished the last one. I didn't write a lot or every day (I had a novella to finish, after all), but I dipped my toes into the new project and let myself start getting a feel for the characters before it was the only thing on my plate.
It was interesting. I've worked multiple projects before, but not with as much... intention, I think is the best way to describe it. This time the goal was to get comfortable with the Space Opera before I finished up the SuperSecretProject. It wasn't to get an arseload of words on the page. My one purpose was to introduce myself to the characters.
Boy, what an introduction. I had a plot in mind and I noodled around sketching out the opening and, as I did, I started to see things about my MC. I started to see things about the way she interacted with the secondary characters and how they interacted with her. And before I knew it I had 12k words and a surprisingly clear vision for the book.
It's still a hot mess, because it's in that stage where every novel is a hot mess. (You know that stage, when the plot still has a few holes and subplots are just a scene or two here and there.) But I do seem to have taken the momentum from the last project (the SuperSecretProject) and transferred it to the new one. Which is kind of amazing considering how different the two are. (Like night and day.)
But there you go. Words on the page, every day. And that's always a good thing.
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