NaNoWriMo Approaches

As November approaches I find myself in a bit of a quandary and a self-created time crunch.  On the one hand, I've been meaning to work on my fan fiction story Girl's School all year and I've absolutely decided to work on it for November's National Novel Writer's Month (NaNoWriMo) as I've done in past years (but not last year).  On the other hand, I have a handful of Grandpa Anarchy stories that I very much want to finish -- Unpossible, Stronger, and Return to Amethyst especially.  But in order to hit the ground running on November 1st, I need to reread and rewrite portions of Girl's School.

I don't know what I'll do.  Today I worked on Return to Amethyst 1 - Miles to Go Before I Sleep.  I finished it, and I think it mostly works.  It kind of ends in the middle of nowhere, with no clear ending, but I did manage to wrap up two sub-plots or sub-threads at the same time, so I think it works well enough as an ending to a part 1.  One sub-plot involves meeting three characters who are echoes/parodies of the Scarecrow, the TIn Woodman and the Cowardly Lion, who each are useful to the group in some way.  I think in all three cases I came up with characters who are not direct copies of the originals, but interesting parallels.  For my second sub-plot, I have something that I hope works as a smoking gun, where I introduce something in the first scene and then much later when it shows up, the readers may not be expecting it.  And one of the characters from sub-plot one helps resolve sub-plot 2.

Like I said, I think it works, but hard to say for sure right now.  Anyway, Part 2 and Part 3 are just ideas at the moment.  I'm not sure if I want to try and work on them, or one of the other two stories, or give up and start reworking Girl's School so that I'm ready for November.

Also, I started a Grandpa Anarchy ghost story file today, after listening to an NPR segment on ghost stories.  I think I titled it Past Injustice, or something similar -- I forgot to save the file to my thumb drive before going home so I don't have it with me at the moment.  But I have an idea for a ghost from the Civil War era or earlier who needs Grandpa's help and keeps calling him Sonny and Young 'Un.