I Plot

I'm setting myself a real challenge this November. I'm participating in NaNoWrimo. That's 50,000 words in a month, but I know I can do that. I've done it twice. This year I'm going to write 90,000 words in a month. Furthermore, I am going to stick to a three act structure and interweave six or eight connected plots into one starry tapestry of a manuscript. This month that means six or eight times the planning I usually do before a novel. On top of that, this is my first novel-length science fiction effort! Intimidating but exciting. I read a lot of science fiction, but I had no idea  how much worldbuilding would go into a realistic science fiction plan. And the philosophy! I don't usually enjoy philosophy, but when it's focused on something I'm interested in, like derived consciousness, I am able to absorb it with spongelike efficiency.

In part to soothe my jangling nerves, I am also reading The Artist's Way. I've started writing the morning pages already, and they really do seem to help me get more creative work done. I'm so eager to plan Project Sol, in fact, that my paying work is suffering! Hopefully by the end of November I'll be temporarily written out and I'll want to take a break with a relaxing accreditation application.

I've got ten agent queries and one publisher query out for Guardian, and that's as many as I'm comfortable with keeping active at one time. I'm expecting the outcome of two of the queries this month.

I'll not wait idly, of course. I want to get a short story prequel to Sol polished and out the door in December, and then I'll edit Sol. If I don't take a year and a half off from editing like I did with Guardian, I could be  ready to submit Sol in... March? Goodness. And then I'll need to slam out a new first draft of a manuscript sometime before pregnancy incapacitates me in late 2011. Let it be known throughout the land: I plan ahead!