Queen Mindi's Castle

The process:
I started out with three pages of outline and an attitude of cheerfully stepping off a cliff, knowing I was in for a 30-day fall to the death.

Metaphorically.

The first week was a dream of getting to know my characters. They were my BFFs. I loved them.

The second week passed much the same, but my characters actually did stuff and quit introducing themselves.

On the third week, I went, "OMG, my story has no plot!" I worried about it all weekend before deciding it didn't matter--I was going to write this stupid thing no matter how plotless it was.

At the beginning of the last week, I was like, "How can I make my ending last for 15,000 more words? OH NOES!"

On Thanksgiving I saw that I had 5,000 words left and was like, "Let's see if I can do this in one day. Ready, set, GO!" The last 5,000 words, therefore, are messy and badly transitioned.

After I was done, I looked back at what I wrote and, with increasing horror, thought, "Did I seriously write this boring, nonsensical pile of excrement?" And at that point it ceased to be a novel and became a DRAFT.

And that was my NaNo experience. The end! (or the beginning... OF REVISIONS! AAHH!)


The Novel:
Here's a summary of my novel's "plot" (we'll call it that, for lack of a better term):

Mallory always has to tell the truth. Her BFF's crush Topher asks her out; she laughs at him and tells him he's gross. She meets a cute guy, Ian, at the library, who quotes Hamlet at her. They get ready to go to homecoming; Mal goes with her boyfriend Jacob Schmitt (Jingleheimer) and Taylor ends up going with Topher. At the dance, Mal and Jake break up and Taylor ends up with nerdy Grant. Mal decides to go after Ian, but when he asks her out she tells him she wants to be friends for awhile. They go to a concert "as friends." Mal luurves him. Mal gets a secret admirer. She goes out with Ian again, this time rollerskating. He kisses her. She gets a nosebleed all over him. He likes her anyway. They go to a Halloween party, where Topher reveals that he is Mal's secret admirer. Mal yells at him in front of everybody and then throws up on him (her costume--being a disguise and therefore a form of lying--made her nauseous). She has dreams about a boy whose face she can't remember. She argues with Taylor over Grant taking up all of her time. Then she tells Ian about her truth curse and he breaks up with her, but a tip-off from his friend Travis makes her realize he has another girlfriend. He tells her he is a secret agent and was trying to find out about her truth curse. She gets her heart all broken. She goes out with Topher because she feels bad for embarrassing him and finds out he's not as much of a loser as she thought. She has a conversation with Travis and realizes he is the faceless boy from her dreams. Turns out he has the truth curse too. They become friends. Her cousin Kindra comes over for the holidays. Mal tries to set her up with Topher but she ends up falling for Ian. Strangely, Mal finds that she is okay with this. She ends up with no boyfriend, but a whole bunch of good "friends" (for whom she may or may not still have feelings). The end.

If you actually read that, I'm impressed.

Anyway, off to dinner now. BYEE!