Another update on NaNoWriMo.
Wrote 4613 words yesterday for new manuscript total of 40,271 words. I forget how many double-spaces pages that adds up to, 136, or something of the like.
I am aflame for this story and still afraid that it will die out, cool off, or burn up as soon as December hits and I no longer have the goal in my mind. There is something about keeping up with it, living up to doing what is set, in public, that keeps me going. Why can’t I do this myself? Why can’t I set a goal, and do it, without the outside help? Discipline, I guess. But I have hope that I can keep going with it when the month ends next week. Only seven more days to go. The 50,000 words is no longer the goal for me. I know the story is going to take more than that, so to finish it is my newer goal.
Then I check in with some of the forum updates on NaNo website, I see some people loaded with words, some have reached the goal already, which is outstanding. Then there are those who post that they just can’t get anything going. I’ve been there. One guy commented that he keeps going over what he’s written and changing that so he never get ahead in his word count. Everyone is telling him, “it’s a first draft, write some shit.” Some writers find this harder than others, I guess. After my trauma deleting surgery, I won’t look back at all, except if I see those red highlighted misspellings in the word program. I might stop and fix them, just to feel clean…ya know…
Mainly focused on getting the words out, since each scene is sort of writing itself. This time, I outlined as I went along, not bothering to outline the whole thing first, which I’ve come to believe totally hinders the process, but having a short path ahead is helpful, and leaving off, knowing where your going to start the next day has been key for me. With this one, I haven’t jumped ahead to write scenes that I know are for the future; instead I’ve hand written them down in a brief account, with my note in the working outline of where I think it will go. I say “think” because half the time a scene will lead right into one that I thought would come in another storyline time. This is the creative flow people!
I’m loving the process for my sort-of first time out. I did do a novel in one month with Book In A Month website, which doesn’t give you an account like NaNo, but you keep in touch with some other writers doing the process also. It went well, but the story, and the creative flow were not as good.
So this nano writer is having a good time. Hope it helps others to keep on the track, even if the goal is somewhere out there…just set another lower one and go on…that’s what we’re here for. Mind you, I may reach the goal, but it could be all just crap, right?
Here’s to writing shitty first drafts and eating turkey until we’re stuffed this week!
Peace…
Seriously…who needs a drink?
Tags: blogging, blogs, C-word, inspiration, literature, musings, NaNoWriMo, nasty blog comments, nasty comments, National Novel Writing Month, novel writing, women, women writers, writers, writing
Seriously…anyone need a drink? I must say, after the past few days I’m in dire need. So this is a bit of a NaNo writing update. Suffered major setbacks with my story this weekend, and performed the bloodiest un-necessary surgery on my story, yes, during the first draft, and pulverized about 2000 words from my word count. How does tequila sound?
I have this problem, even though I don’t consider myself a highly dysfunctional perfectionist, I can’t stand when
something is sitting there all wrong…it paralizes my momentum, and subsequently, when this flaw dawned on me, I could not longer write my story. …So I went in, with the delete-key blade and performed surgery. I ended up being satisfied by Sunday night, but the word count made me flinch. On Monday, I officially wrote nothing. I just couldn’t recover my love, my feeling, my passion. I started thinking…switch to short stories, start something else, re-write some more fairy tales, write 20 pages of “you suck”, copy some other novel, what ever. Instead, the day really paid off, because as these fruitless thoughts did their rampage through my brain, I realized that what I was doing was good, maybe exceptionally good, and that with some editing (later–yes!) it could be publishable. So I dove in on Tuesday and banged out nearly 3200 words, tied up the loose ends from post surgery trauma, and infused the story with some nice intrigue and mystery set ups. I hope. I may be waving my own freak flag, but hey, sometimes we have to give ourselves our own thumbs up too! Right?
On top of this, handling those nasty comments from this weekend (on Nip Tuck Scene post from last week, if you didn’t catch it) on this very fine blog which I love, love, love and refuse to retire from, didn’t help my writing situation, but it did spur my courage to push on no matter what people, I mean assholes with assholes, say about me personally or professionally. The use of the c-word pushed me over the edge a bit, not that I lost one bit of sleep over it, but it made me wonder: How could some nice girl, from a nice town, with nice intentions, nicely share her opinions as she has a right to, not asking for any money to do it, is always willing to engage in constructive thoughts and other’s opinions, even if they differ from hers, and nicely share some eye-candy with those she cares about, end up being called such a word as the c-word???
It makes one wonder…
Pushing on through with the National Novel Writing Month of November. It truly has become a memorable one. I think I’ll have that drink now.
Photo by Doisneau