A few months ago I submitted the first chapter of my YA paranormal to a young writer’s contest (at 25, I just qualify). In October they’ll contact the lucky 10 individuals who get to move on to the next round, and at that point they’ll have to submit the full manuscript. So of course, this means I have to have a finished manuscript by Oct 1st!

The good news it, this is Whispers, my Nanowrimo 2010 project, so the rough draft is already done. The bad news is, for this revision, I’m changing the tense. Instead of being in past/third person, it’s now in present/first. Not a seamless transition. I’m happy with the change, and I honestly believe it’s the right thing for the book, but it means that I’m in for a lot more writing and a lot less copy-and-pasting than I had originally counted on.

Unfortunately, it hasn’t been going as quickly as I had planned. Because, well, I’m busy, and I’ve got a lot on my plate, and there’s still plenty of time, and…insert excuse here. But it’s getting to that point were there isn’t plenty of time left. Not much left at all, really. So, time for something drastic.

I’ve been a Nanowrimo winner enough years to know that I work really, really well with daily deadlines. Graphs make things even better. So I’m doing the August Camp Nanowrimo, with a twist. Instead of writing 50,000 words from scratch, I’m second-drafting 75,000 words. I’m going to end up having to write a lot of those words from scratch, but I’m not focusing on that. Too scary. But dammit, come September I will have a second draft done!