Taking the Plunge

Writing a novel is like strapping yourself into the first cart on a roller coaster, knowing damn well what you’re getting yourself into, but screaming your head off anyway as you rise and fall, spin around, hold back the urge to puke, and finally squee with excitement from the thrill of it all.

Then, as soon as your ride’s over, you run *with arms flailing* and jump right back in line to do it again.

I’m once again returning to my work in progress. I’m revisiting the WIP outline to shake things up a bit (and what I mean by that is switch scenes around on my outline).

The plot has the potential to be a sequel or even a second in a series if I opt to highlight secondary characters instead of continue with the love story from my first novel, and I could even squeeze out the back story paragraph in the first chapter, change the names, alter the initial location a tad bit, and voilà, have myself another stand-alone project to work on. How I managed to pull off a secondary plot that is so flexible is beyond me, but I’ll own it because, shuh, it’s that unique. (Borrowing my MC’s voice ;-)) But no matter what I end up doing, I’m only making adjustments to notes.

Then I’m going to set it aside again. Yep, you heard me right.

Before I go all roller coaster on it, I am going to wait out the verdict on my first round of querying (ever!) that I began this weekend. I’m holding off doing any actual writing for the WIP in the event I land a fabulous agent, and that person has a vision I can share in for the future of my first novel that will impact what comes next, (see all the possibilities above). I’m flexible like that, and so is the novel’s concept.

With NaNoWriMo coming up in November, I’m then going to switch gears and start prepping for the event over the next six weeks. I’ll be reviewing and adding to my concept notes on a different novel I plan to write, which is intentionally designed to be the first in an adult contemporary series, and I’ll also begin building an outline for another novel I am aching to pen but is in another category (YA, R) other than my focus (Adult, CR). I’m leaning heavily on working with the Young Adult novel for NaNoWriMo because, in the end, it’ll need to be shorter in word count than my usual category, and it’ll definitely be a stand-alone, and, after completing it, I will be able to polish it quickly because it’s a much simpler plot than I’m used to constructing while the verdict is out on my first round of querying (and hopefully my only round).

Whether I go for the first in a series or the YA stand alone, I’m definitely mounting that roller coaster again and gearing up to squee as NaNoWriMo is just around the corner. Who’s with me?