Sometimes It Just Ain't Gonna

Update first:
Yesterday: 532
Total: 9760
Way far behind!  But I've made peace with the story now, and hope that will allow me to move on more quickly.

Made peace with the story?  Now, what the heck does that mean?  It means I have decided what to do with it, and how to approach getting to the end of the month.

I had an idea in October for one story to write for NaNoWriMo this year.  I don't know, maybe I should have stuck with that.  But it wasn't gelling for me.  So when I had a flash of an opening scene for another story, and one thing that might appear in it, I decided to go that way.  Even though I am not a "seat of the pants" writer.  Generally, I like to have a decent idea of where the plot is going and what's going to happen before I start.  Maybe not every detail- ok, rarely every detail!  But at least the main points of the beginning, middle and end.  But, here I was, November 1st looming on the horizon, and I didn't have any of that.  So I started with that one scene and decided to see where it went.

Which is nowhere.  Yes, I have a vague idea what I want to write, but it's not coming out anything like I thought.  And it's been stalling me because of that.  I know this is never going to be a decent story.  It would take more years of work than I have to make it even readable, I think.  But I came to a conclusion last night.

I decided that I'm not going to worry about making this a usable (marketable?) story.  I have my novel from '08 that is partially through first edit, and I think that's a decent story.  I have last year's, which is not quite completed yet, but, again, it's a decent story (I think).  So this one can just be, well, kind of a mess.  Oh, I'm going on with a basic plot, and I hope it has some sort of coherence and story to it, but I'm not worrying about it being "good."  I'm treating it as an exercise in honing.  I'll use it to work on some of the areas I know I need work on: describing things, expanding characterization, background stories and sub-plots. 

I think that will get me back on track and give me the freedom to just put the words down.  And any practice is good practice, right?  Who knows?  Maybe it will even turn out better than I think.  Maybe.

Write. Now.