My NaNoWriMo project this year was to fix the gaping plotholes in two novels that I had decided to split apart from a previous NaNoWriMo. I had decided that there were just way too many subplots for one novel, and the fact that for at least three-fourths of the original 105,000 word draft that there were a bunch of the characters who never interacted with the others until the end, led me to try separating it.

But it wasn’t a matter of arbitrarily breaking it in the middle and trying to write something that would feel like climax but still lead into book two. The first two-thirds of book two happens at the same time as the entirety of book one, and then all the characters from book one start coming into the main plot of book two. Also one of the sets of subplots came together in a big battle (it’s a light fantasy in an epic fantasy wrapper, so there are battles) in the second half of the original rough draft made the book feel as if it had two climaxes, so trying to turn it into two books made sense.

Anyway, I had second drafts of two related books that didn’t work and had a some missing connective bits, so I made that this year’s project. Existing scenes that required a major re-write were counted in this year’s word count along with completely new scenes. And I hit the 50,000 mark, and have at least improved things, but I don’t feel as if I’ve actually fixed the plot problems. Which was what I had hoped for.

I don’t really have a conclusion. I know my productivity went way down after the election, and I haven’t really gotten back into a good space where I’m being productive and liking what I write.