October Novel Prep Challenge

I wish I could use all that momentum from NaNo to do this. I really do. But this is one of those...big projects. I'm not a writer with one big story in me (like, say, Harper Lee), but I have put more of myself into this project than any other. I tend to intellectualize my stories--the historian's objectivity--but this one is very much me. Sending it through NaNo made it go too quickly, so it lost some of the meandering, philosophical depth in the process. The thing is 100k words now, but it's a skeleton with too much plot. I need to slow it down, which is not what NaNo is about. So it's getting the slow and steady treatment while other projects, which can move faster and not be harmed by the speed, go through the NaNo process.

I wish I could write a prequel for this story. It wouldn't really work. The most I can do is write little vignettes based in each character's past lives (sounds corny, isn't that bad). Given the cuts I need to make and what I need to add, this thing could very well end up in the 200k range. Another reason it needs to stay with me for a while; no publisher would touch a manuscript of that size from a first-time author, no matter how good it was.

Anyway...I sympathize, obviously, lol. And I know big stories. World-building is my first love. The problem is when I find myself elbow deep in history texts, with 15 windows open to various databases of primary sources, and no actual writing getting done for two months. I do usually end up with enough notecards to write a few PhD dissertations, though, so there is that...
-Quaddy

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