just another brick in the adobe

The last couple days have been packed with procrastination, and I'm sick of how that feels. Today is NaNo catch-up day.

I'm fine in terms of the official word count, but I'd planned to write 2.5K each day for the month, in order to get an entire draft done. Since my drafts seem to be better when composed in condensed time-frames, I figured NaNo would be the perfect opportunity to get a long-held and long-loved idea (finally) down on paper.

NaNo's upsides:

--It's easy to explain a group project like this even to people not especially into writing. And since lots of lay-people are doing it, it doesn't seem impossible or silly for me to try, too--even to people who otherwise forget I write.

--Lots of support. I never thought the forums would help me as much as they have. Hearing about other "nobodies" working to stack up high word-counts and struggling with the day to day drafting process has been great. And the counter at the top of my page--even joining the site at all--has given me a sense of accountability.

NaNo's downsides:

--Because the support and fellowship of NaNo are what brought me to it in the first place, I feel tied to the NaNo timetable; meaning, this is a November project, and it doesn't matter that this November is an incredibly stressful time for me.

--I don't know if such a speedy draft is best for this particular project. On the one hand, speed seems to work well for my writing in general--or at least, it has in the past. On the other, this level of speed doesn't allow for a "perfect" first draft..which, in a project like this, that I've already outlined and thought about, seems a shame. I wonder if a slower first-go might result in a better finished project? Maybe I've outgrown the need to silence my inner-editor by burying her under a mountain of words? Maybe I'd be better off letting her speak a bit during my drafting?

I'm not sure if keeping to my old NaNo inspired style of speed drafting is a way of refining my process or of crippling it....

doomed if you don't

Sure, I started NaNoWriMo on time like the consceincious little A-student I am, but it wasn't that great. 1.5K in, and writing it out was a chore.

But yesterday I decided to try and get back to my personal quota-- 2.5K/day. Which meant I was supposed to have five thousand words down by close of business yesterday. I packed them in.

About half were inserted between words that were already there: long digressions about the characters' feelings, backstory, sensory detail, BLAH BLAH BLAH. The other half were mostly centered on meals; a picnic lunch and cold-leftovers for dinner. But it was FUN. And I'm actually pretty excited by what I have down.

Here are the great things about writing a long ass novel:

-- There's room to play.
-- Going inside the narrator's head is fair game.
-- It's ok not to know where you're going until you get there.
-- Or, conversely, it's ok to know where you want to go and let the path wander in no kind of straight line.


For me, writing yesterday was all about the way space can loosen inhibitions and waken the imagination. My story felt new and alive.

And the shorthand of saying: "I'm doing nano" is sure nice, too.

Ok, yeah, I'm a convert. Sometimes being a follower is kind of nice. Going on the warpath: at least not having to martial the troops gives a grunt more time to enjoy the journey.