Nano is in full swing, and I was typing away yesterday on Ever Touched when I came to a horrifying conclusion: it was just not working. No matter how I framed it, this story sucked. I know Nano is all about the wordcount and I believe in that to a degree, but the sick feeling in my stomach would not go away. Especially after last night’s work. I’d thought maybe it was pressure related (book 3 of a series), maybe it was because I was pantsing it and felt like I was floundering….but no matter what I told myself, the feeling continued to get worse. And I can’t continue on a project if I feel this way, Nano or not.
So I made a decision. I would start over. I’ll keep my words and wordcount intact (after all, I did write them!), but I’d start at the very beginning. I’ll do that for a few days. If things didn’t improve, I’d choose another novel and start that. It is still early in the month and I could probably get a good 15-20k in before the 30th.
So today I started it and…so far, it feels better. I feel like my character is acting and narrating in character (that was one problem) and I’ve changed her secret/problem a bit and I like it better now. I’ve also changed the way she and the male lead interact and again, much better.
Whether or not this is the answer to the problem I don’t know yet. But I have a long history of needing to restart stories. Fey Touched I started twice, and Grave Touched three times (not counting the rewrites! Counting them, probably five!). Sometimes you have to go where your heart goes, and I believe my muse was not quite on board. This is one case where brute force was the wrong thing to do.
Did I waste the first 11k? Hell no! I may reuse some of those scenes (with tweaks, of course!) and even if I didn’t, they started me on this path and needed to exist to bring me to this point. It’s all good.
Stats!
Words written: 12,871
Words remaining: 17,129
Word wars: 9
Word wars with myself: 2
Chapters written: 0
What’s happening: An uncomfortable conversation (again!)
What’s next: Brianna needs to make a decision
Feeling: Better!
Chocolate: Not a lot! I had a chocolate-covered caramel from the hubby, and I ate a WW Sundae with chocolate syrup, yum!I lost a pound and a half!
Weaver of Words 
I’ve restarted projects many times too when I hit a wall. Ygerna is a restarted project (that I first tried to write about three years ago!) I’m starting to think this is most likely to happen to me when I don’t have enough signposts plotted out to keep me on track.
Good luck!
Thanks, Ruth! You may be right about this one. I’ve had the nagging feeling that I should have plotted it a bit more than I did.
Yes, it is better than you scrape the project, take yours losses and move on. Sounds like you have a good attitude about that. Good for you. Starting over sounds like the right thing to do.
Thanks, Chris. I feel better and better about it all the time. 🙂