The Return of the Writing Bug… (Maybe?)

A while ago I started thinking about my unfinished NaNoWriMo project from 2012 and how I could maybe pick up that story again and continue writing it. Back then I wrote the story in English, because in a way that was the language in which the story played out in my head. Maybe because I read most novels in English by now and watch most TV show in the original English and because I write this blog and most tweets etc. in English?
Anyway, I didn’t finish the story back then and didn’t even reach my goal of 50.000 words. I tried to pick it up again during last year’s Camp NaNoWriMo in July, but that didn’t work very well either. I know I could just let it go and put it all to rest, but for some reason I think I would feel rather bad about doing that. Not necessarily because I think it’s a story that the world needs to read :-), as I have no idea if I’m any good at  writing a novel.
I admit the main reason for me to not (yet) give up on this plan to write a novel is that I don’t want to add another “tried that, didn’t work out, gave up” item to the growing lists of not-followed-through ideas of mine. I feel like I have started or thought about starting so many things in the past few months/year, and gave up on those before anything ever could really happen with them, if that makes any sense. I don’t want “writing a novel” just be another one of those failed plans of mine.

So I was determined to continue this story during Camp NaNoWriMo this July, but to write the remaining chapters in German and translate the previous chapters later or in between or whatever, because I realized that as much as I would love to, I can’t write a novel or a longer story in English, because it isn’t my first language.
I was trying to get in the mood for this story again but hadn’t quite gotten the right feel for it yet, which quickly made me question my plan of spending my July writing. One of the main issues was, that I had originally planned (and carefully worked out) to have 2-3 different point of views for the story, but by now I wasn’t sure if that really was the right thing to do. And there were a few other things that gave me a headache about a few details of the story.

Tonight though I had a spark of a completely new idea for this old story, which would solve the problem of the various points of view. I can  tell the whole story from just one point of view, and not even from one of the original main characters. Which of course, will change the story in a lot of ways, but which also might help me get a new grip on the whole plot. A fresh start for it all, without giving up on the basic idea of events within the life of a family. I know I’m speaking in vague sort of riddles at the moment, but I still have to think all this through before I will be able to write a short summary of the story for the “novel info” at Camp NaNo and such.

But I really, really enjoy how my muse is already coming up with various ideas and additions to the old plot, because with putting a previous supporting character into the centre of the story, this character will need a few new supporting characters of her own. Friends and love interest and so on. Her possible love interest might be a sort of rebel kind of guy (hello, cliche, I know *g*) and I’m pretty sure that this guy will be a Frank Turner fan. :-)

I guess I will spend most of tomorrow jotting down ideas and trying to work out a new timeline for all the stuff that has to happen in my story and how it will be different from her single point of view. I know I already will spend the time before I fall asleep tonight with letting those characters roam around in my mind and tell me their story and hopefully by 1 July I’ll have a clearer idea of how it all will play out now. Exciting times..

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