Nanowrimo - The First Fifty

The last couple of days have been anti-Nanowrimo in some senses.  I've been revising.  National Novel Writing Month is all about production, forward momentum, and not looking back.  I've broken that rule.

But, what happens when you need to know the beginning before writing the middle.  I've been working on this novel in many different ways over years now and I have a lot of little inconsistencies in my early pages.  Carol is the aunt, no she's the mom.  The mom is alive, no she's dead, nope alive, but she has cancer.  With all of this reversioning, I was a bit confused.  So, I printed my first fifty pages and I set about revising the good ol'fashioned way with a comfortable chair and a pen.

I had a lot to work with, or should I say on?  With so many inconsistencies in the draft, many a page was marked from tip to tail.  It felt good.  I also have a much better sense of how this thing is going to open.  I've sat down now and worked through the first 14 pages of my marked-up draft.  I've made a lot of cuts, but my word count total for my session today still amounted to 1,298.  I'm doing a lot of cutting, but I'm starting to add a little more of the necessary texture to the draft.

My first drafts are often quite lean with dialogue and action accounting for most of what's going on.  The setting, the time, the context for the story all get added a layer at a time as I move through revision.  I've got notes in my margins saying, "Describe house here."  Or, "Avoidance!  Make the conflict happen here."  Each time I come across one of these notes, I write.  I push the draft forward to a tighter, more cohesive whole.

So, while I broke the rules of Nanowrimo, I'm feeling good about the work I got done this weekend.  I don't think I'm going to get anywhere near my word count this month, but I think this time I'm setting aside is some of the best I've spent on the novel in months.