NaNo 2010 - Bending The Rules AND all about WIP

As most of you are probably aware (at least those on facebook) I've been wondering whether to do NaNo or not, since I was also wondering what direction revisions in my current WIP were going to take.

Well, now all decisions have been made, and you are the first to know :-)

This year, I'll be bending the rules of NaNo. Instead of writing a new project, I'm going to rewrite my current one. It requires a complete rewrite, and here is why:

1. Change of POV - instead of multiple third person, now it will be first person. That not only means a complete rewrite just because of that - but also because any essential information that was given to the reader during other people's POV while MC was absent, now need to be delivered through MC.
2. Plot - while main plot remains the same, due to POV change, and just few other ideas, several things change
3. Character Cutting - I've gotten rid of few of the minor characters, and reassigned new roles to some of the existing characters. As a result, their scenes change.

Of course I haven't come to this decision lightly, since I was actually planning to complete this book by end of October, and start a brand new project for NaNo. I have spent enough time going through my WIP, and I actually did a completely revised outline. But now, I am convinced that this is much better, far closer vision of my book that is in my mind. First person narrative focuses more attention on MC, and as a result makes him more active. Other characters were stealing too much attention through multiple POV and it wasn't suitable for the scope of this book.

There are a few things I still have to sort through in the new outline - again, result of all these changes, so I've decided to make this my NaNo 2010 project.

Because this is not a brand new project, I will be aiming higher than just first draft. So this is my goal:

• Complete rewrite of the whole draft (current version which is multiple POV stands at just over 98K words. This one should be at least 90K)
• Clean rewrite. Not just superfast mad race, but as good draft as possible
• Finish the rewrite by/before 15/11 and start revision
• Second half of NaNo month should be spent on revision

I love the challenge of NaNo, and participating with so many other writers, so I absolutely did not want to miss that opportunity. And there are times when we just have to do things our way, so I am skipping the rule book, and doing it my way. Goal after all is to accomplish something, and that's what I hope to do.

Looking forward to sharing NaNo experience with many of you again.