I had sort of a harebrained idea for this year’s NaNoWriMo novel, and I’ve spent weeks trying to figure out how to set up the plot points and make it all work without being unbearably cheesy.

Day after day, night after night, no luck, no dice, no go.

This afternoon, in the shower, it hit me. I have a better story idea, and it’s one that I worked out the plot points for almost a year ago. I’m going to wrap it in part of the discarded story idea so I can continue with the plan to work on describing locations better by setting a few scenes here in Portland. (I need to work on my descriptive abilities, and I figured this year’s NaNo would be the best venue for practice. I’ll take my laptop places and take my best shot at describing the sights, smells and sounds while not breaking the narrative flow too badly.)

The good news is that I have much more confidence in my ability to finish the novel. The bad news is that I’m going to have to essentially write two stories at once, interweaving the two, while changing perspectives if not tenses.

“Crazy? I was crazy once. They locked me in a padded cell. I died there. They buried me six feet deep. The worms nibbled my brain. It drove me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once…”