I Broke the NaNo Editing Rule: Editing Early

Now that I've officially finished my NaNo novel, I decided to go ahead and start the editing process. I ended up completely re-writing my entire beginning. 

WHAT?? WHY?? 

The old one was crap. Seriously. And not just "Oh, I just wrote this so I'm feeling a little self-conscious about it." No, it was REALLY crappy. It started off with a disgruntled phone call between my main character and another character that ended up completely disappearing from the rest of my story. Her name should have been M.I.A. because that's pretty much what she was; Missing In Action. There was a ridiculously artificial dialogue that made absolutely no sense with the rest of the story so I decided to completely re-do the beginning. I was really scared that it wasn't going to work out and that I was going to end up screwing up my story and my word count but it actually worked really well. So well, in fact, that it ended up changing my story. While it's still a murder mystery, the method of murder and mystery has changed. And I think it's actually improved my story which makes me very excited!!!

I've also had a new character emerge. He really kind of appeared just as a "filler". I needed a quick character at the time and he decided he was the man for the job. But I like him so much that I decided to keep him around and he's blossomed into one of the main characters. This also makes my story a lot stronger because unbeknownst to the author (me) he and my Main and my Villain all have history. (This new character is also kind of sexy and is full of secrets so he's lots of fun!)

Aside from the beginning re-write, editing is going kind of slow. I keep getting distracted by my gigantic "to-read" list that has been neglected for a while. I really want to get this story published but I'm not going to rush the editing process. I think some time away from my story might actually do some good because then I've had a chance to fill my head full of lots of other things besides my characters and all of their issues. I've heard that it's better to take some time away from your story to edit it. In this case, I think it's the best idea because I'm so close to these characters that it's hard to get them out of my head even when I'm thinking about day-to-day stuff. We shall see how it will work out. 

How is NaNo working out for you? Have you made your word count yet? What are your thoughts on the editing process? 

Hey! Hey! I made it to 50k!

51,394 words

Last night while sitting outside my Tiny Tyrant's dance class, I crossed the 50,000 word line! I am super proud of myself. My track record of finishing writing projects isn't that great. It's been a long time since I've actually sat down and tried to work on a writing project so for me to even get to this point was a great accomplishment as well. 

I've posted two excerpts from my story and I had planned on posting more but I think I've changed my mind. There are a lot of things in the story that I want to change before I let anyone read it. Some of my characters ended up needing a larger part of the story while some of what I thought were main characters disappeared from the story entirely. This is why I have to change the entire beginning of my story when I get ready to edit. One of the now defunct main characters is a huge part of the beginning of my story so that's definitely going to need a re-write. 

I'm still in shock that I actually finished writing a 50,000 word piece. Even if it sucks, it still has a beginning, middle, and end. And I haven't taken the time yet to read it from beginning to end but just thinking about the turn of events that wrote in the last few pages, none of it makes any freaking sense. But that's okay! I'm considering this manuscript my story's skeleton and not my actual story. It's the bare bones of the story and now I need to go back and add the meat! 

I'm going to spend the rest of Nano cheering on all of my fellow Nanoers (Nanoers?) on Twitter and trying to round up helpful writing tips to share. Or maybe just posting funny pictures. You probably shouldn't take too many tips from me until after I fix this mess of a story. 

Have you made it to 50k? What did you do to celebrate? If you haven't made it to 50k yet, how many words do you have left? What will you do to celebrate reaching 50k?