4-month check in: How's your NaNo doing?

[Kali]

I've tried to go back and edit mine a couple of times, but it never came to anything.  I know what needs fixing, both in specific and in general, but I haven't been able to stand it.  I 'blah' over large chunks of it.  That means even I'M bored with my novel.  Yikes.  That said, I was re-reading Donald Maass's excellent "Writing the Breakout Novel" book and got an epiphany on how to fix a large chunk of the story.

And I finally figured out how to write the beginning correctly.  I've known from the day I set it down that the ending was awful; it meandered, it babbled, it droned on and on.  Now it's better.  Ok, it's no "I opened the door and Morgan fell bleeding at my feet" in terms of media res, but it's much, much better.

Just wondering if anyone else is still working on theirs.

[Darwinist]

Buried under the other four novels I started and never finished

[KevinEvans]

We have one of our two, almost ready to submit, (it needed the most work) the second is in need of much less work. Both of the works in progress will be ready before NASFIC, and we have the pitches ready for our targeted publishers.

The next novels are blocked out, and ideas are sorted for preperation. It is important to rember that novels can sit for years before a decision is made, so writing one and waiting on it is a losing game.

regards,
Kevin

[elsupremo]

Mine is dormant. Life exerting too much pressure in other areas.

[Cooper]

Editing '08 right now.  Been tweeting it under #projectmana.

[LizW65]

Dumped approx. 50% of it, took a break to recover from surgery, have yet to get back to it, except in my head.   I'm planning to start up again sometime this week.

[Nickeris86]

mine are berried under the pressure of graduation.

[Kali]

Buried.   And the irony here is just killing me.

My Nano is busily being beaten into an actual novel (the one I'm talking about in the thread where I'm lookin' for beta readers).  It is now almost as large as it was originally (closing in on 50k), but I've added so many new scenes that the ending of this book will bear almost no resemblance to the ending of the NaNo version.

Which is probably good, because when you write a 50k story in 2 weeks, odds are it sucks diseased mongoose wang, and mine did.

I did manage to preserve the corn dog scene, but I have removed the were-hamster scene.  Favorite upcoming scene needing reworking:  Shirtless Smokin' Hot Catholic Priest Scene!  Which parallels nicely with my favorite recently added scene, Shirtless Psychopathic Werewolf Scene.

I'm a simple creature, really.

[KevinEvans]

Latest update,

Our project is 4/5ths done. The edit version is up to 90K (26 chapters) words, with eight more chapters yet to be edited and added in to the total. The deadline to have it ready for our first readers, is Condit in SLC. May 27-30.

This should put us comfortably in to the 100 to 120 K word length that our prospective publisher wants.

The second novel is already at the right length, and needs word polish and continuity checks.

We even have a pitch set up for Nasfic.

Sweating it out,
Kevin

[meg_evonne]

It wasn't Nano, but I'm deep in revision of YA using the shrunken manuscript concept, I'm switching from 3rd intimate to 1st POV, and religiously reading and recording as part of that revision.  I've placed a three month time frame to get it finished.  I received a full manuscript review by a Penguin editor and an agent who kindly asked to see my revision when I'm ready.  Who knows?

Life goes on...

[belial.1980]

Dead in the water. I met the 50K requirements in the alotted time. I spent another 3-4 weeks "finishing" the manuscript. But it's so bad that I have no compulsion to go back and work on a 2nd draft. Ever.

Maybe not ever but I made up just about everything as I went along and it ended up as a big steaming trainwreck.  Oh well. At least I got all the way through it.