NaNoWriMo Prep: One More Alternate Candidate...

All of a sudden I realized that I have one more alternate novel I can write for NaNoWriMo 2009: the Spanner novelization. If I've been working so hard writing that prequel trilogy (Bad Company, Black Science, and my still unnamed 2010 NaNo novel) and all those side stories (The Jennifer Theory; Dirty Pop and its potential sequels) and yet have come nowhere near to finishing them, shouldn't I go back to the core story of the cycle and start actually writing it? Since I have so much story material built up in the project notebooks I've kept since 1991 (the current, and last, being #14), I should be able to assemble it all, add the new story ideas I've been playing with, and perhaps finish the first book by the end of the year. Since so much of it is in script form already, I could write both the complete script and the novelization in as little as two months (NaNoWriMo plus NaNoFiMo).

Now, Spanner is supposed to be a webmanga. Problem is, I haven't been drawing anything, and I've even neglected the story itself to work on all those prequels. NaNoWriMo, which got me writing the prequels, would be the perfect opportunity to finally get off my butt and start writing Spanner itself. Actually, I did start writing Spanner already — but for Script Frenzy '08. But I didn't follow through on that. Besides, I'm discarding the majority of the script I did write.

There's still 25 days of October left till NaNo. My decision is not yet final. Maybe I've put Dirty Pop on my NaNo profile, but I can always change it. I still have time. My choice of novel isn't final till NaNo begins. Right now, Spanner itself is starting to look like a possible alternate to Dirty Pop.

But if I do choose to make Spanner my NaNoWriMo novel for 2009, there's two things I'll have to do in addition to the prose: 1) write the script, the basis for the prose, and 2) draw. A lot. My script will rely on thumbnail layouts, and I'll need to create character designs. And I'll have to improve my drawing skills so that I can do both much better than I can now. If I commit myself to Spanner the novelization, then I commit myself at last to Spanner the manga.

Choices, choices...