Another year, another novel

Here’s today’s hard reality of being a writer.  Sometimes the projects you spend two years of blood, sweat and tears on don’t end up published.  Sometimes, they don’t even end up finished.  My first novel is currently going into this bucket.  I made this decision subconsciously a couple of months ago but I wasn’t really ready to let my baby go.  I’ve spent two full years on it, still believe in the idea, still love my characters and eventually will return to it.  But, because I love it so much I’m not willing to use it as my “first” and thus major learning experience.  So, I’m shelving it… for now.  I’ve spent the last couple of months editing and finding more work than I thought to get it up to par and ready to write the ending.  I still know where it ends and how, just have to finish the re-write of what’s already written so I can finish it up at some point.  For now, I’m switching gears and preparing for this year’s NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) which starts November 1st.  This time (my third) I’m going in armed with another year’s worth of learning and knowledge about how to write better and will spend October coming up with an outline so I am better prepared.  I am not sad, I’m being real.  And if talking to other writers this year and learning from them has taught me nothing else, it is that it takes writing many completed books to finally figure out how the whole process works.  Getting caught up and overly attached to one project over another just sets you up for disappointment.  So, I’ve tried my hand at urban fantasy – this year I’m tackling a straight out fictional work.  We’ll see how I like it since I don’t even know what “my” genre is yet.