NaNoWriMo Last-Minute Preparations

After coming up with several potential story concepts and thinking far too hard about which one I should choose for my first year's NaNo novel, I picked one plot--the one I thought I could get fifty thousand words out of. I wrote a synopsis, came up with the structure of the first scene and several others, and thought myself set.

Last week my interest in the story snapped. The problem with that plot was that it dealt with issues, and I remembered that I really hate it when novels try to deal with issues. Beyond that, I'm just sick of talking about issues. Living in a college-town like Bellingham means living surrounded by very strong and often very immature opinions about issues of all sorts, and those opinions accost you everywhere--picketers' signs, boulevard campaigns, shop-window posters, bumper stickers on every third car. That's without reading the newspaper or having any particular relations with the school. I hate that. I'm tired of having everyone's opinions forced on me all the time. I want to be left alone.

Pardon the rant.

At any rate, it's possible that I'll switch back to that story when November 1 hits and I'm faced with writing fifty thousand words from a half-envisioned fantasy universe and a very loosely outlined plot. My goal, however, is to fill in the blanks as much as I can, hopefully accruing a little more confidence by then. This idea is more cheerful. I like cheerful. I do not like stories about How Life Sucks. If I wanted those, I'd read the news.

NaNo has me so excited that I'm doing little things like double-checking my notebook to make sure it has enough pages to last me a week, arranging and rearranging my Author Information on the site, and flicking into my notes regularly to keep them turning in the back of my head. I should go work on those right now.