So, I completed NaNoWriMo (congratulations to everyone else who did too), which always gives me a nice sense of accomplishment to round off the year. I’m now faced with the dilemma of what to do next.

Much of the information (and there are many useful articles) about the next steps after hitting 50,000 words are aimed at people who have only written this much for the first time. It’s all about how to finish the novel you’ve started or how editing works. For me – and perhaps for you – the dilemma is slightly different.

You see, 50,000 words is not a complete novel. My story got a little bit beyond that as part of the writing for the month, but it is still not complete. However, I still have two books I should be editing instead, both of which should ideally go back to my proof readers before the madness of Christmas starts to descend. But editing is, in comparison, boring to writing new stuff. Shiny! Squirrel! Chase it! That is the mentality of my brain unfortunately, and something I really need to kick in the butt in 2015.

More importantly, there is a worry that if I lose momentum on the writing, then it will become harder to come back at some point, maybe a few months down the line, and just pick up again where I left off. I don’t want to have to battle with inertia in order to rediscover my characters and the tone for this particular book.

Normally, I might have a bit more time on my hands in order to accomplish both, but December is so far shaping up to be another travel-intensive month. I have spent more of the last 30 days in hotel rooms than I have my own bed. Which is fun, sometimes exciting, but it puts the kibosh on having some kind of routine and structure to just write. Sitting down with my bullet journal and looking at all the outstanding and new writing tasks I have listed there just made me realise what a juggling act this is all becoming. And I really don’t want to have to cancel Christmas…

So, do I do what I should do (edit) or what feels more natural to do (finish of the book)? Sadly, I suspect this is a dilemma for which there is no correct answer!

Apologies for the whining in this post. Here, have a complimentary hedgehog to make up for it: