I didn’t do any writing on my NaNo novel this week, although I did possibly come up with a plot. Or, as my screenwriting teacher would have called it, the A story line. It doesn’t yet work within the series as I envisioned it, but then I suppose I can adapt one or the other to better fit with what actually gets written. And I’m sure in the writing of the story, things will change and grow—and hopefully I’ll stumble across some B and C story lines as well.

In addition to not writing on my NaNo novel, I also did some tinkering with two other non-NaNo projects that are noodling in the back of my brain. (If you’ve never heard Tamora Pierce talk about her “very scientific” process of “noodling,” i.e. how her projects percolate in her brain, you’ve missed a great comedic moment of life.) Both projects are things that I don’t quite feel ready to write yet because I’m terrified of screwing them up when they’re so dear to me. But every time I take them out of noodling and see what stage they’re at, what new things I can add to the pot, I feel a little bit closer to being ready to finally write them.

I also put some new what I like to call “writing reference books” on my Kindle in search of general inspiration and guidelines. As always, Rachel Aaron’s 2k to 10k is still there, but No Plot? No Problem! by NaNoWriMo founder Chris Baty, 250 Things You Should Know About Writing and The Kick-Ass Writer by Chuck Wendig, You’re Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop by John Scalzi all got added as well. So far I’ve done minimal reading in all of them, and I like them all.

And, of course, I began shaping what might be a totally new project. It might be part of a universe I’ve already written in, since creating a whole new world around it seems like a lot of unnecessary work. It it might be its own thing, or maybe it’s one of those sub-plots in something else. I don’t know yet, but it feels like the sort of thing that will be so stuck in my brain that I won’t be able to help but figure it out soon.

This weeks stats are a little different.

• NaNoWriMo Word Count To Date: 3,543
• Projects Worked On: 3
• Books Plotted: 1
• Blog Posts Written: 3