Emily's Intro and NaNoWriMo Blues.

Hola peeps of the interwebz,

My name is Emily, I’m a YA author of two finished first drafts and multiple strewn ideas that probably shan’t ever see the light of day. But I won’t make this an intro post because unless you’re an interesting person (which I don’t think I am), they are super lame. So….

NaNoWriMo. Let’s talk about that, shall we? Now, I promise you that I have an actual legit reason for talking about NaNo outside of November. It’s the sixth day of December. This means that you’ve had a whole six days away from your NaNoNovel. (Or if you’re super awesome like me *giggles* and finished early than you’ve had longer.) But seriously, this is our sixth day of finishing—or at least finishing 50K words of—our novels. Do you feel fantastic? Do you feel totally badass and awesome?

Well I’m here to tell you that you’re not—no, just kidding. I’m totally here to tell you how freaking fantastic that is. You wrote fifty thousand words in a month. Top banana. Honestly, feel proud of yourself. You’re fantastic. Marvelous. Brilliant. Prodigious!

But I won’t glorify you any longer. It’s time to get to the heart of this post:

NaNoWriMo blues. I didn’t think there was such a thing, actually. When I finished at the 50K mark, I did a jig, shut my computer, and became best friends with my bed again; but there is such a thing. Maybe not for you who are still celebrating by dancing around in your underwear or gorging yourself with cake and presents (which, I’ll be honest, I did on my birthday two days ago.), but for your book, this time is hell. Think about it. If someone gave you their blood and sweat—or in this case, our brains and social life—and then totally just abandoned you because the time was up, you’d feel sad too.

So, the time for dancing and eating is done. It is time for you to face what you’ve been avoiding. Pick that book up and kiss it. Love it. Hug it. Then rip it apart. No, not literally. We like to keep our manuscripts in one piece here.  But now it’s time to read over the words pressed and squeezed out of your noggin, and admit they could be better. Then start rewriting.

Open a new and white and clean doc and make a sort of outline of your novel. Pick your favorite scene and start there. Rewrite it. Make it clip and clean and beautiful. Then go from there. For me, I’ve decided that draft number two was going to be written backwards. I’ll start at the end (lol.) and end at the start (Gosh! My humor never fails to amaze me.) And it’s working. I’m falling in love with the novel yet again. And once I finish draft number two, I’ll know my characters even more at the start than I did when I began the novel the first time.

Does that make sense? Who cares! You peeps are obviously brilliant if you’re reading this, so you can sort it out anyway.

What I’m really trying to get at is that you need to find a way to fall in love with your novel again. And, as the creator and master of that book, you can do it however the hell you want! You are powerful. You control their life. Their world. Who dies and who lives. You can do whatever you want. ABUSE THAT. USE THAT. DO IT. You can.

So, go pick up your novel and show it some new and improved love. Don’t let you novel get the NaNo blues—that’s just not nice.

Now what are you waiting for? Get to it.

Allons-y; let’s go.

Your most highly esteemed and brilliant author friend, who is obviously the coolest and most fantastic shiz since sliced bread,

Emily.

Ps. Nice to meet you *bows out*