NaNoWriMo 2008 #5
That’s right - or write, I nearly typed - there is nothing else going on in my life at the moment except for NaNoWriMo. And a horrible head cold. And watching Strictly Come Dancing (every girl needs a hobby, and besides, I have to keep my husband company).
A couple of hours ago, I reached 20,000 words - that’s 5,000 words or 3 days early. I am pretty damn chuffed with myself, seeing as I spent most of 2006’s NaNoWriMo approximately 5,000 words behind, until I got my act together at the end of the month and wrote around 2,500 a day for the final week.
The story, banal and possibly uninteresting as it is, has been flowing nicely. I have been ignoring the fact that my prose is somewhat clumsy, and have been concentrating on just getting the words out. As Chris Baty, founder of NaNoWriMo, says in his book No Plot? No Problem!: Don’t get it right, get it written. And that’s what I’ve been doing with an ease that’s rather astounded me. Several times I’ve got to the point of ‘oh, I’ll just do this next scene’. Hopefully I can manage this after November when I go back to finishing and revising my 2003 novel…
This year’s novel will be going in the bin though. :) It’s pretty crap, if an interesting exercise for me in third-person point-of-view, which isn’t something I’m particularly good at. The best way I’ve found so far of increasing my word count with minimum effort is to spend a scene having Character A telling Character B what happened to them in the previous scene. And then perhaps do another scene having Character B discussing this with Character C. It’s probably bad writing practice - no, I know it’s bad writing practice - but it can up my word count like billy-oh!
Anyway, I’m writing this post as pure procrastination. I’m so far ahead of myself that I could just go to bed and not worry about writing anything else today. However, I’m strongly tempted to keep going for another hour; why waste the roll I seem to be on? And I know that I’ll probably have days this week when I really won’t have the time to write much (due to work and commutes and so on).
I do have another blog post that I really want to write - I did want to post it today, but there’s a lot more work to go into it yet. I’ll save it for Tuesday… for reasons that will be obvious once I do publish. But I’m finding it hard to get any enthusiasm for doing any writing which isn’t related to my current NaNoWriMo novel (which is called Love Like Loathing, for those who may be interested). Oh well, who cares?!
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on November 9th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Hurrah for 2008! Congratulations on the speedy writing, and long may it continue.
You never know when some gem will appear and shine through however, so promise not to bin it, drawer it instead! My 2007 Nano (the one that’s now sitting on agents’ desks and hopefully not getting laughed at TOO loudly) began life as a short story in 2001 and sat in limbo all that time. I had no idea it would spark to life again.
Tuesday, Armistice Day? I’m going to put myself in tears if I try to post something; I’ve been thinking about it. Meanwhile I’ll just die of envy over your title–it’s fantastic.
But I told you that already.
Susan´s last post: Blog Your Blessings Sunday: Freedom, Friends and Unity
on November 10th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Susan said what I was going to say (she said it better).
By all means throw your writing in the bin…
… just promise ‘never’ to throw the bin away.
It’s a great title. It is!
Ken Armstrong´s last post: Quantum of So-So
on November 10th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
I’m writing a novel at the moment as well (or a novella, really), but I wish I was as dedicated as you. I can’t seem to stick writing something that doesn’t sound right - you’re admirable in your ability to put down whatever will move the scene forward and trust yourself to come back to it later.
(I’m also watching Strictly! Cherie is probably my favourite, but I was disgusted that Rachel’s American Smooth ended up in the dance-off. I love pretty much any good quickstep.)
Fiendish´s last post: Prose Poem
on November 10th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
I will take your advice to heart, Susan and Ken. And yeah, I love the title too - it’s the best thing about the novel. I may even post the so-called song I’ve written to go with it (a band and its singer feature heavily).
Fiendish - you should have given NaNo a go, it’s a great way to cut loose in company! Maybe next year? (Come to the dark side…) As for Strictly, I’m liking Lisa a lot, unexpectedly. And the quickstep is also one of my faves; that and the Paso.
on November 10th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Yes to Ken, do NOT, repeat do NOT throw that bin away! we are, in my experience, often the worst judges of our writing, especially when we are writing the damn stuff. At least I hope that’s true….