Heading Into November

When we last left our heroine, she was frantically trying to write the last couple of chapters of that same old book she's been working on for a while now. It's getting serious. If I don't get it done by next Friday, I'll be trying to finish two of the damn things in November, and just the thought gives me indigestion.

The interesting news is that I have given over the first part of my novel to my crit group and they have been instrumental in pointing out where it needs help. Unfortunately, it needs help in a very large and fundamental way. Their advice was something along the lines of "your writing is marvelous but your story sucks." Okay, they were actually tremendously more gracious than that, but emotionally it amounted to the same thing.

On the plus side, I'm heading into Nano this year as the ML for Santa Cruz. That's exciting to me because in the years that I've actively participated in Nano, I've enjoyed great success. Those years where I did Nano but tried to go it alone, I had a much harder time of it. I'm wondering whether being responsible for my little tribe will make things harder or easier.

I have done a lot more outlining and planning this year than I had in years past, so that's one place where I'm ahead of the game. But it's like any sporting event. You can read the team stats and think about their past performance all day long, but in the end, it's still a contest.