Thoughts on Going for It

This weekend, I submitted my first ghostwritten novella. 50 pages, 30 days. The premise was very vague, with just a brief description of 3 characters, the setting of "a strange world," and the basic idea of "good fights evil," so I had to do most of the story and all of the world building myself.

I put out the proposal mostly as practice - I didn't really expect the win the contract, but I figured I could learn something from the "client declined contract: view reason" aspect. Plus, it'd be fun if I did win, wouldn't it! Good experience and all.

As soon as I won, I started panicking. What should I do now? I've participated in NaNoWriMo for the last couple of years and I've never even gotten to the 50 page mark. Why do I think I can do this? I've never written a complete fantasy novella before! I'm not qualified for this; I should just call the whole thing off, apologize, and go hide under a blanket for the next few days with a bowl of soup.

Instead, I asked myself: what's the worst case scenario?

I fail miserably. I don't complete. Or I complete the novella and they hate it. I'll make no money if I don't complete, and a pretty small amount if I do. I might get some bad feedback on my profile. That might make it harder to find jobs for a while. Then again, most of my jobs so far have been in editing, reformatting and copywriting areas, not creative writing areas, so that probably won't actually affect much, will it?

Ok. What's the best case scenario?

I succeed brilliantly. So brilliantly that I'm disappointed that I don't get to take credit for it. My first ever fantasy novella makes my employers fabulously rich and famous. Then again, I don't think they're quite as inspiring as a well-connected teen (Eragon) or a single mother (Harry Potter), so the novella would have to succeed on my brilliant prose alone. Let's be honest, that's not very likely for a first work.

So the most probable scenario is that I make a little money, build my resume, learn about writing on a deadline, and have some fun with it.

Phew. Panic over. Down to business. Erm. I don't have any clue where to start. The blank Word document is staring me in the face. I play around with formatting for a while and surf the internet, calculate how many pages I have to write in a day if I don't want to write on the weekends (3), and go back to staring at the blank page.

But I don't want to close that Word Document. If I do, I know I probably won't open it again. If I choose inertia, then it'll be that much harder to choose action. And I know basically what the story is about - good defeats evil. What else do I know about stories?

Five minutes later, I have:
Exposition:
1.
2.
Rising Action:
1.
2.
3.
Climax:
1. Battle between protagonist and evil person.
Falling Action:
1.
2.
Conclusion:
1. Hero is returned home, victorious.

The next time I got stuck, I started writing down everything I could think of about my main character, who was described as "a 16-year old girl." And so on. I just kept moving in the direction of writing a story, and eventually, the story was written.

The moral of the story: just because you aren't completely qualified, doesn't mean you shouldn't go for it. Do what you are qualified to do, and you'll figure out the rest.

The corollary: A day later, I also won a contract to write a short action-adventure story (I REALLY didn't expect to win both, it was a little overwhelming!). But then it changed to a mystery. I have read a couple of mysteries, but not many. Fewer than 10. That was too far outside of my experience, and I ended up declining. Know your limits.