There are two paths you can go by

I'm sitting at my first NaNo write-in.  So far, I am the only attendee because I am ridiculously early as usual, but I expect that to change shortly.  Instead of getting into my story, I thought I'd take a moment to note where I'm at so that when I finish this crazy month, I can appreciate how far I've come.

I crossed the 20,000 word mark yesterday, and I must admit, I'm in a panic about what to do.  The main story is finished, in that all of the necessary plot elements are present and written.  This means I have to fit 30,000 words somewhere into that main plot.  I recognize that I tend to leave descriptions out the first time around, so adding that in where appropriate has helped me raise my word count.  Realistically, however, 30,000 words just does not fit into 20,000 unless you decide to go on a hundred page jaunt with Tom Bombadil, which I refuse to do.

This means I am at the proverbial crossroads in the woods.  Do I attempt to stick with my main story and add in more back story and descriptions, flesh out the main story more, etc., or do I go in a completely different direction?

Here is what I've decided.

I will continue to flesh out the story so far until I hit 25,000 words.  At that point, I will have finished filling out the outline that I started with.  I will have learned where I can expand and how better to pace an outline next time.  The next 25,000 words will be uncharted waters.  It is this 25,000 words that will consist of me writing with no outline.

If you knew my "real world" training, this would make you spit out your coffee and laugh.  But, in the spirit of this great experiment that is NaNo, I feel compelled to do what all the writing books tell me and find out what works for me.  I like the outline method, and I feel comfortable with it, but I'm curious as to where things will go when I have no boundaries.

Next post may be me rueing my insanity.  We'll see.