The 3 Days Conundrum

3 days until National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and I have absolutely no idea what my novel is going to be about. Okay, I will edit that statement. I have way too many ideas of what I think my novel should be about, and none of them are strong enough in my mind to drive the other ones out. Not quite the way to begin a month-long project of love, eh? Here are some of my ideas…

• A space odyssey (but not set in 2001)
• A romance (because I’ve never written one before)
• A classic mystery
• A period piece
• A supernatural tale
• A fake memoir
• A horror story
• A modern mystery

The truly depressing thing about having so many ideas is that each one has already begun to weave itself a web inside of my mind and I’m already making a lot of connections. And I know what you’re going to say. I should just write a classic mystery supernatural romance horror story that has elements of modern mystery, that is set in space, and I would write it if I felt I could. But I’m one of those writers trained in pretty much sticking with one genre. I have no problem having elements of other genres in my stories and novels, but putting everything but the kitchen sink into this one will just make it cluttered. Yeah, I have a problem.

There’s good news too, though. I know that in the end whichever one I pick I will be able to write fluently about. It’s always the choosing in the first place that’s hardest, that and a title. Luckily I use a working title until I’m nearly done, as I do with everything I write, so I’m not pigeonholing myself into a corner I will desperately want to claw myself out of. I think I read somewhere that the average number of times an author changes his/her working title before settling on a final one is 13 times. So I just keep one working title throughout, and then I take a month just to finalize an actual title at the end. Or sometimes longer than a month. Titles are hard.

I can’t wait until Friday so I can get started, but I know this year it will be tougher than last year. You see, last year all I had to write each day during November was my NaNo book, while this year I’m maintaining blogs, which will carve time out of my schedule, but I can’t imagine not writing my daily blog entries. It’s really good for me to just get my thoughts out here, and thank you for always listening. Er, reading. 3 days until I start my new novel! I can’t wait.

Sam