I’ve been meaning to try and hammer my out the kinks in my story-building process before November (and NaNoWriMo) rolls around again. Of course the main problem with my process is that I don’t have one… and Pantsing isn’t working as well as I’d hoped.

So I’ve decided that 52,000 words is close enough to 50,000 words and that I’m going to write my next novel based around 1,000 word posts. This will give me one blog post a week for a year, something slightly more satisfying to ponder than a mere 50,000 almost-a-novel lump I ended with last year.

Will it work? Who knows! So I’ve decide a bit of practicing is in order… I just need to pick a victim.

I’ve opened and closed the rough draft that is The Sundering about a dozen times since I decided to work on it again. Haven’t change even a single word and it’s still the unappealing lump it was went December 1st rolled around.

As much as I’d like to un-lump it, I think that’s going to have to wait for another day.

Silverwitch, on the other hand, did start out as a serial novel and it’s been scratching around in my brain recently. Still, I don’t know that there is enough story there for it to work… or if maybe I started the story in the wrong place. *pokes story*

But I’m really too fond of the idea to strip it down to bare bones and start it up again.

Which, unfortunately, is more or less the wall I feel about all the rest of the novels-eternally-in-progress. If I want to prove this 52 step system can work, I may have to start fresh.

So tomorrow there will be 52 index cards, The Snowflake Method, colored pens, Parts is Parts, lots of white-out, and some Really Great Writing Tips. (And possibly alcohol.)

Time to put my fingers to the grindstone and try to do this right!

…

Or maybe just maybe it’s just time to throw caution to the wind and let my Muses go to the Dogs…