Question for the experienced WriMo's out there

I am not an experienced WriMo but I did start last ngith and I wrote about 800 words on a story than I went over it like you did and did not like where it was going saw a better way for it to go so I deleted my 800 words and started over but my case was different to yours I wasn't liking the story all together i had 800 words and I didn't want to keep writing such a boring story but in your case you just want to edit the pathway yes? this would involve re-writing most of your story it I was in your situation I would probably save what I have written so far and start a new document and start the new pathway and if it was flowing well I would continue with it but I would also have the original sorry to fall back on if my new pathway was a dead end. also it is really up to weather you want to spend the time re-writing 4,000 words.
Hope this helps if it doesn't well sorry I tried :S

Living is the cure to your problems. Sleeping is the cure to your exhaustion. Talking to me is the cure to your boredom I guarantee you this :)
Started NaNoWriMo at 6 p.m. on Friday The 5th of november

You can do whatever you wish to do. if you want to start again and feel you could still get to 50,000 words by the 30th then I'd say do it. This is your project, no one else knows what's best for you better than you.

In my past nanos I've done one novel, and I've done two different novels. If you don't take nano seriously and are open to different ideas perhaps mush your two ideas together and see what comes of them? Use what you've written as an open and then transform it into a new idea? There are many different things you can do :) Good luck!

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Charles-the-great, I have only done one Nano previously and have not had your experience but once when I was in a similar quandary the I Ching gave me some great advice which was to make up your mind, choose a course and stick to it. I offer this to you now. Nano is all about challenging yourself and enjoying yourself. If you are not doing the latter my advice is to do the former by ditching it and starting over.

My 2c.

Thank you guys. :D

I'll give it till the evening to either come up with some fantastic inspirational idea, and if I don't I'll just keep playing with what I've got and try to take it somewhere. Every halfbaked character and loose thread's an opportunity to expand, right? :)

If you can get to 50k before Nov 30, then start over. As you have seen, 2 people have already cracked 50k and its what, 7 days in?

You MAY have to pull all-nighters, cancel parties and social engagements, have pizza delivery on speed dial to do it. But these are all stories you tell your fellow writers.

... like when I lost 4k words the other Monday and I declared- I WILL STAY UP UNTIL 2AM! Which I did, to get the words back. Extreme novelling dude! No other month of the year can you brag about such things to such a captive audience.

Shut up and LOVE it!

I am a NaNoNewbie too but I will offer some advice I read in Chris' book. Don't delete what you have already written, don't edit it or re-write it, just put it in italics or format the text white and ignore it. Then write your new plot. The point is not to over think things in November, because with some perspective in December you might see that some parts are not that bad.

How different is your new plot? If the characters are the same maybe could you keep the words you have as a prologue or something? One of the tips in the book was that writers have to 'create clay' with their minds, this is what NaNo is for churning out big lumps clay, which you can they shape/edit into beautiful writing in December.

‘all communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact are imagined’ Benedict Anderson

4000 words in? I mean this in the best way, but that's 8% of the 50k, and even less of your final story's total. You can absolutely do whatever you want with your story, and it may not have much to do with what's gone before. Personally I've got a hell of a lot of rewriting to do to make my story make any sense, but you can only go forward with these things if you want to win. :)

He liked his breasts like he liked his tea; milky and in huge cups.

How you approach NaNo is entirely up to you, of course, whether it's if you edit or not. You don't even have to get the 50k if you don't want to, but since you're doing NaNo, we assume you do!

Personally if you don't like an idea, it's like washing your mouth out or tolerating a nasty taste. Or you could choose to swallow the bitter medicine and get on with it. Or hedge your bets and stick it in your cheek and try something else.

It might be harder if you're new because maybe you're not sure if you can manage the 50k in 30 days or whatever. Having done it before, I'm confident enough to set my own goals, so I'm really more focused on making sure I like everything that I see. I'm shamelessly editing and rewriting almost every scene I type, even going to back to old ones before NaNo started and rewriting those- and no, that doesn't count towards my total.

If it helps at all, I always find the first 10,000 words really crap and awkward anyway. There's too much exposition, some of the characters sit awkwardly, some are introduced and found to be irrelevant . . . it's like the puberty of novelling. It takes me about that long before I find my groove and start to write comfortably, and that's when amazing things happen.

Caffeine Spider

OK, well obviously it's up to you... For about 1.5K at the start of the month I was trying to find which idea I would like to write, and none seemed to stick...

If your new ideas are with the same characters and in the same world, why not just write it and see how it plays out? You never know how it will eventually turn out til you write it... As you have discovered, at 4K in things are changing from what you had originally... It will continue to happen...

I personally HATE the period between about 6k/8k up to 14k/16k... In between those areas, I come to find that I hate my idea, and hate the way I'm writing it... It isn't flowing well, and the characters are annoying me, the story sucks, and I doubt myself as a writer...

But then I get past that, at anywhere between 10(on a really good run) and 16, I start to really love my idea again, and the characters start to write themselves a bit more, and make the story flow, and before I know it, I'm at 50K and I don't want to say goodbye!

Of course this is different for everyone, but I go through that phase with every novel I write... Of course it is a little less intense at other times of the year, but also longer lasting... I tend to just put the story aside until I feel like writing it again, but that's not possible in NaNo (Well, it would be possible, but the end result would be several half started novels, instead of one completed one...) and so I stick with them and write them through, and am really really glad when I do!

So yeah, I'd suggest sticking with it, but it is really up to you...

NaNo07: A Ghostly Belonging - WON!
NaNo08: Muntaer - WON!
NaNo09: Growing Up Robot / We Have Your Voices

Please don't have pizza delivery on speed dial....I'm a pizza delivery driver and am trying to do as little deliveries as possible so I can finish work, get home and write!

Lol, I'm just joking....as long as you order before 9pm I'm happy lol