To Be--or Not to Be--a Wrimo Rebel.

35 Years, a Million Words and No End In Sight

 NaNo kickoff is closing in and I'm not ready to commit to a new story in my storyworld.  Oh, there are possibilities that tempt me--several minor characters that could step forward and carry a POV story arc for 20-50K.  If I'm unsure of one taking it all the way to 50K there is the possibility of pairing up two or three characters into a single story with three separate POV characters each with their own character arc that is braided into one story. 

Several of them interest me and a couple excite me.  That is until I remember all the previous NaNo endeavors that interested me or excited me enough to take me to the 50K finish line only to molder in pixel dust after the clock struck midnight on November 30.  I've lost count but I think there are at least 20 separated POV stories set in my Fruits of the Spirit storyworld and since so many of the characters are interwoven into so many of the other characters stories the plots and timelines are a tangled jungle. 

This tangle contributes to the difficulty in sustaining each new POV story and especially in maintaining the pace for a NaNo 'win'.  I put that in quotes because it has not felt like any kind of win for several years.

All summer I've been working with the entire storyworld in my story dreaming and in the collecting from my story files all the relevant story facts into a story bible for reference no matter which POV story I happen to be working with. This work has reconnected me with the original story.  The one from which the rest have flowered.  The one that is still the heart of the storyworld.  Faye's story aka The Substance of Things Hoped for.

I find myself sad at the neglect.  A neglect motivated by the NaNo rule that it has to be a new story not a WIP.  The original story--Faye's POV--was already closing in on 30K when I first encountered NaNoWriMo in 2004.  Nothing has been added to it except in my story dreaming and notes.  But from that I'm confident there is material for another 50K words and I know much of the story I want to tell intimately. I've been living with it and dreaming it since the late 80s.

More importantly I already understand it's architecture which is based on Faye's character arc.  All of the other POV stories that I've spun off from Faye's story intersect with Faye at some point just not always inside the timeline of Faye's novel but if they do it is a bit part.  A line or two or a scene or two and strictly in Faye's POV.

My heart yearns to return to Faye's story and give it the same focus as I've given the spin offs each November for nearly 20 years.  But not if it too were to end up smothered in pixel dust.  So I am caught in a dilemma.  I'd rather work with Faye's story than any other right now but I don't want to give up NaNo.  Neither do I want Faye's story to suffer the same fate as the 20 odd spinoffs.

The best solution seems to be becoming a Wrimo Rebel by investing my November words into a WIP while simultaneously committing to continue working on Faye's story going forward until the story arc is complete and after that whatever rewrites and edits are necessary.  I think if I continue to give it half the attention of a NaNo month each month after I could have something close to publishable within six months.

See links to outtakes from my FOS storyworld: Fruits of the Spirit Story World Portal