I’ve decided that if NaNo had a blacklist, I’d be on it. Three times. Because, hooray, I’ve broken all three basic rules of NaNo! To give you an idea of how bad this was, here was my original outline:

First, I didn’t start from scratch on a new project. I worked sporadically on two other half-finished novels after becoming terrified because the first two chapters of the Wild West romantic comedy were the worst things I’d ever written. Here’s the one page from it, a flashback from the point of view of a freed slave who became a cowboy, that made me decide to give it a second chance.

Second, you’re supposed to just write. No revising. No editing. Get those words on the page. And I understand that…really, I do.

But, sometimes, if you’re going in the totally wrong direction, it doesn’t matter how far you’ve traveled…you’re still not going to end up in the right place. As of last weekend, I had 15,000 words, 9,000 of which I wrote in one day to beat my fellow writing majors to a checkpoint that involved candy and also bragging rights. (I did it mainly for the bragging rights. Ate oatmeal for all my meals so I could keep writing. Basically tied myself to my chair. You know. A little extreme.) Here’s the triumphant photo I posted at that point as proof of my word count.

Then, the next day, I deleted 13,000 of those words and basically started over. Because it was awful and not going anywhere at all.

And things got a little better. I’m including some high school scenes from the POV of my female protagonist to explore her judgmental tenancies a little more, which has been a lot of fun. And makes the story work better too.

Third, you’re supposed to focus on one main project. As I mentioned before, I did not do that. At all. And it cost me some time and a lot of words. But, it turns out, writing a chapter or two of those old projects gave me the confidence I needed to try something completely new…my first (and hopefully worst) romantic comedy. They were a way for me to remember, “Oh yeah, I can write some stuff that isn’t awful.” And then I could switch to writing a novel that’s mostly awful without feeling too bad about myself.

I was cheered greatly by one of NaNo’s pep talks, where Patrick Rothfuss addressed all three of those rules…and said we had permission to break them. He replaced them instead with these general commandments: You don’t have to start entirely from scratch, revise sometimes, and follow your enthusiasm.

Why, thank you, Mr. Rothfuss. I think I will.

Here’s the page where I am right now, at a tidy 19,987 words. So far, I’ve worked with a rogue chicken, mistaken identity, a wannabe bank robber, an old lady with a shotgun, and Legos splattered with spaghetti sauce. It’s been fun.

Still more to come. But I am going to beat this thing.

Also, bonus: I managed to work bacon into the story. I’m still trying to find a place for the word “flamethrower.” We’ll see how that goes.