In Which I Say Hello to Some of My Characters

I recently decided that I'd really love to have a first draft of a whole, entire novel finished by the time I turn 30..which is a date that isn't terribly far in the future.  Just a few months, really.  More than six, less than ten.  And it won't by a long shot be the first time I've given myself a goal.

It will, however, be the first time that I absolutely don't fail at my goal abysmally.

That said, I have multiple in-various-stages-of-progress drafts that I find myself resisting, and I wasn't sure which I would tackle. It's proving to be a challenging decision.  And this is why.  My first step is this: to read what I've already written, assess its merits, and see if I like the people with whom I've populated my stories.

But here's the deal.  Though they are fictional, I kind of like all the people with whom I've populated my stories.  And to further compound my difficulties, one of my favorite characters spends a good deal of one of the books dead.  It's kind of key to the premise of the novel, which is basically that a group of his friends are trying to honor his last wishes that they put the 'fun' back in funeral.  And while his friends are interesting enough, I suppose, they aren't as interesting to me as he is.  Which presents the quandary again: he's dead.  And how many flashbacks can a girl do before the audience says "Enough already!  Where's the FUNERAL, for cryin' out loud?"

One of them's a reimagined fairy tale, but it's actually on the bottom of my list at the moment because though I like my vague ideas that are associated with it...the plot's a mess.  Just nonsense.  And not in a Lewis Carroll or Dr. Seuss or Roald Dahl kind of way.  Straight-up nonsense that makes no sense.

And behind door number 3, there's a...love story?  I don't know, I guess it's kind of a love story but it's also kind of not a love story, and I want it to be about someone who literally tries to lose herself in order to find herself...but she's being followed around (entirely unintentionally) by the former-boy-next-door who always recognizes her on some level without really recognizing her.

Anyhow.

I suppose I'm typing this out to help myself make a decision, and all I've really done is narrowed my choices from 3 to 2.  I'm wary of the third becoming something overly sappy, but that's never been the aim and I think I might wither away if anything I wrote was ever favorably compared to oh...Nicholas Sparks.  Which means that if I chose door 3, I wouldn't want to be writing sentimental, drivelly yuckiness.

This bears more pondering, but not too much more.  I have a deadline looming.  (Who cares if it's one of my own creation?  Also: this goal.  Means I might actually have a successful Nanowrimo this year.  We'll see.)