The Wait Begins.

Several members of a writing message board are doing an unofficial NaNoWriMo in January, to be affectionately referred to as JaNoWriMo. Basically, another "bang out 50K words in a month" thingies.

So today I outlined my new project, Playing With Fire. It's a story I've been thinking about for a while, and finally got the outline where I wanted it. I'm really stoked about this story, I'm itching to start with these characters.

And I can't actually start writing it until the 1st.

Which is fucking killing me.

However, I have discovered something: When I actually impose a start date, and can't start writing the story until that date, I spend a lot more time thinking about and tinkering with the outline. Since I'm chomping at the bit to write the story, I start delving into some of the back story, the character outlines, etc., and by the time I actually start the story, I know more about it than if I had just done the outline and started winging it. It's frustrating, but I think the story will be better for it.

This happened with Camera Shy, too. I was so eager to get it started that I spent hours poring over my characters, creating little biographies, etc. I even went so far as to write "post game interviews" with Jason and Simone, the main characters. It was basically their own commentary about what had happened, things like that. Sounds lame, I know, but I ran with it, and after writing two ~4,000 word "interviews", I knew a hell of a lot more about Jason and Simone.

So, for the next 11 days, I will probably be doing similar mental gymnastics to help me figure out my characters and - most importantly - pass the time until I can finally write the damned story.

Is it January 1st yet???