One thing I know I want to do in 2012 is
finally work on one of my National Novel Writing Month first drafts and turn it into a completed story. My plan was to start the first week of January, all bright and cheery and excited, but my plans were derailed by sickness. Now that I'm crawling back into the land of the living, I'm anxious to get into a story and slowly work through the rewrite process. I only have two obstacles to overcome first.
Issue number one- my office is a mess. It looks like Christmas threw up in there. Seriously. The rest of the house is de-Christmasfied, and has been since December 26th, but I haven't yet faced the office. Today is the day.
The other problem is where I need
your help. I have five very rough drafts to choose from and I find myself waffling between four. Which one do I dig into first? I have a love/hate relationship with all of them. I thought maybe I'd throw it out here and see if I get any feedback. I'm breaking all the blogging rules in asking you for help rather than providing content to help you but I NEED YOU MAN! (or woman.) I may not run with your choice but I'd love to have some input to chew on anyway!
The NotSoFantastic Four:
1. My very first NaNo I referred to as the "Christian Desperate Housewives". The story revolved around neighbors and friend's struggling with lust, betrayal, jealousy, teenage suicide-the works. The characters were quirky and fun though and I'll have to dial down the melodrama in the rewrite. You can catch a glimpse of these characters in one of my Write on Edge prompts;
Double D's This one is faith-based but not overly sanitized.
2. My "stalker novel" has always been a favorite of mine. It's a YA story centered around a teenage girl whose mother has been fighting cancer and has become obsessed with her health to the point of completely shutting out her daughter. Her father is losing his business and is having difficulty coping. While her parents love her, they have no idea how to connect with her and she is starving for attention. She wakes up one morning with a broken window and "I See You" scrawled across her bedroom wall. Suddenly she's the center of attention, but is
this what she really wants? There's a section of this story posted on my old blog here;
Some Call It Stalking (Reading it over, I already see areas I need to change!) This one has some faith based elements.
3. I would have to do a complete rewrite of this one, as I hate everything about it, but I still love the idea. It takes place in the future, in a world where religion as a whole has been outlawed. The main characters are sent on a journey to discover old writings, receiving messages via their tablets. Through their adventure, the Christmas story is told and short "devotions" would be included after each chapter. The idea is to create a dystopian advent novel for teens and adults. I still love the idea, but this one would need more planning. This one is completely faith based and overtly Christian.
4. The last one is my most recent NaNo. It's a contemporary story of a woman who's recently come into money and takes the opportunity to write her life story. She uses three different genres to fictionalize the tragedies and difficulties in her life (fantasy, romance, and thriller). With each section, she attempts to find a happy ending but this proves difficult. Woven into the three stories is her current story. I need to figure out how to describe this more clearly but it was fun as a NaNo novel. There's a short excerpt here, from the fantasy section:
Once Upon A Happily Never After. This one is not faith based.
I know I'm asking a lot but I'd really love to hear your thoughts! Please remember the excerpts are raw rough drafts (I'm so insecure!) but should give a hint at the tone of each story. I've also been flirting with the idea of starting from scratch with something else, but I have these 50,000-75,000 word drafts to work with already so why not?