A shocking case of amnesia (or how I forgot to award prizes)

I’m a blog-offender of terrifying proportions. I had a contest with spanky prizes, and wouldn’t you know, I forgot to give them away. I’m bad. I know.

Anyway, random.org, told me that Jeff was the winner! Jeff, sounds like you may have scored some holiday gifts for the women in your life! I will email you at the yahoo address on your blogger profile for your address.

So, NaNoWriMo is my boyfriend this month. I’m woefully behind, having just come off a string of back to back twelve hour shifts (and, I won’t lie, a mini-break to Asheville, NC). By my estimation, I have five days to make up eighteen thousand words. Yes, I know. *Sigh*

Please send jiggity-finger vibes to me during the next five days, to make my fingers dance across the keyboard. I shall blog again on the 15th (the halfway mark) and tell you if it worked. Meanwhile, my NaNo seems to be dialogue-heavy, with few discernibly different characters. I guess I’ll have to fix that in December. Man, but it’s hard not to revise as I go.

So who else is NaNo-ing this month, and how are you doing?

Those dastardly new plot points...

So there I was, innocently editing my lovely book, when I had a thought: what if *insert character* knew about all these shenanigans already? What if she kind of set them all in motion without the MC realizing? Holy COW, what a great idea…one that would lend an extra layer to the story. Cool right?

Hmmm. My brain flicked through scenes like a rolodex and I realized just how many scenes would need to be changed—some with big chunks, some with a throwaway line of dialogue. In all honesty, it could be worse, but I know that this will involve an extra week’s work—and that’s with no ‘real life’ getting in the way.

This has happened to me about four times during the writing of this book, and I’m convinced that each time it has made it stronger but… when does it stop? I wrote a post a little while ago (ahem, okay, more than a year ago) about editing, and knowing when to stop. It’s a tricky business.

How much have your book changed from inception to execution? Have you ever ‘finished’, only to find that *insert plot point/new character* would make it better? How do you deal with it? Have you ever just said "NO!" to that new idea? How many times has it happened during the writing of your book?

Spill!