So I was flying high with writing the past few days until I reached Chapter 7. This is where my character told me she wants to juggle (so I let her) and then in the middle of the chapter, she bursts out crying.

WHAT THE.

The scene was a “poor baby” moment, the day after Ruth finds out that her crush is not who she thought he was. She woke up with a hangover, and then her friends and her sister catch her juggling (yes, she juggles to relieve stress) and so everyone went on “comfort Ruth” mode. It was supposed to be the scene where she gets convinced by her friends to start dating, and she expresses some of her initial fears. At some point during the chapter, her best friend asks her how she is, and then she cries. SHE CRIES!

That was surprising. She’s not supposed to cry until somewhere later in the novel!

I finished the chapter yesterday but then I got stuck. I couldn’t move. The tone of the novel started going emo, and I suspect the premature tears caused it. And there’s still supposed to be some wacky stuff happening in the next few chapters and suddenly her crush became the main guy. If I continue with what I wrote, I would have to make him reappear, so where would my two other guys go?

ARGH. I so wanted to delete that chapter yesterday. I wanted to edit it…so I added some words to see how it would go but it just turned out even worse. *headdesk* And it’s like the biggest Nano sin if you edit during the month, but I so want to edit! But no no no no no.

The solution?

I write an alternate chapter.

Okay, that may be cheating…but it’s not re-writing. I’m just writing the chapter in a different way, without any reference to the first version of the Chapter 7 I initially wrote. A less emo chapter.

Okay, I’ll definitely put the juggling in there. That’s just too fun not to write.

So welcome to the suckage that is Week 2 in NaNoWriMo. I’m tempted to take a break, but I don’t want to. Unless nothing hits me today, then I will probably take a break. Hopefully, I don’t have to because I really don’t want to abandon this novel and not finish it. I want to break to 30K tonight, and then maybe I’d rest. :P

I love my story too much to abandon it. And I love that my characters are actually moving on their own. Sometimes they do too many things (like cry for instance), but that just means they’re living. I won’t be surprised if my character decides to buy some promotional bags for herself (but I won’t let her…unless absolutely necessary).

Somehow all these talks make me think of Jasper Fforde books. How characters get formed and how stories go and all that. Interesting.

Anyway, I’m off to lunch and get some more plotting done. :D Hopefully some of these ideas make it into my screen. :) Happy writing!