I don’t know if this NaNoWriMo thing was a good idea or not. I’ve managed to get 3855 words down on paper which is more than I wrote fiction-wise all last month. However, I’m not sure I can sustain that rate or if I’m prepared enough to carry this story for 50k words. I also feel like I’m behind already.
Stop psyching myself out, right? Think positive! I already write around 30k words every 30 days, right? What’s an extra 20k words? Hmmm. That doesn’t seem quite right. It’s more like an extra 50K if I want to keep up writing my daily journal entries. Even more if I want to do a blog entry every now and a again. I think I just have to leave those to the end of the day, after I’ve met my NaNoWriMo quota.
Maybe that’s what my blog posts can be. Something like Monday, Wednesday, Friday progress updates on my fledgling Romance novel — I’m expanding the story Revealed. I don’t think I’m going to do many Thursday Thirteens until December. I don’t know. I’m just going to play it by ear. I think I will do one for Thanksgiving regardless. Always good to remind yourself what you’re thankful for.
I spent a good chunk of Friday afternoon working on a spreadsheet that lays out Dunne’s page by page analysis of where in the story and plot you should be on what page of your script. This combined the diagrams on page 63 and 112 of Emotional Structure. I made it so I can adjust the total word count and be used for any number of pages. I extended to a second set of pages that I can use to write notes about what I should be writing about at that point. Boy, did I have a lot of filling in to do on the 2500 words I’d already done.
It’s scary to realize that I tried to tell the whole story in that space and managed to get the basic sequence down, but there’s so much more to flesh out. What the hell was I thinking? I must be insane, either that, or just very naïve. I think the latter is much more plausible.
Off to see how far I can get before DD’s new mattress is delivered!
Ugh! I feel your pain…or fear? I want to do that Nano thing but I think I’ll just wait until all my kids have flown the coop and it’s just little ole me. 😀 Good luck.
I’m cheering you on.
Morgan
NaNo is totally insane. I did it for two consecutive years, and although I won, I kept cursing under my breath “What was I thinking?!” It’s all a matter of sticking with the word count – 1,667 words per day. As long as you can do at least that, then you’re okay. Insanity won’t set in. 🙂
Thanks guys! I managed to write 2,377 words yesterday. I need to do at least that much again today and I’ll still be slightly behind. I figure it’s not too bad considering I had to spend some time the first few days doing the planning I should have done back in October.
I’m on page 35 of the ms currently and I have notes for the next 12 pages or so. That will finish Act I. I’m going to have to step back and work on the notes for Acts II and III, but I have some time when I’ll be forced to be away from my computer coming up, so I figure I’m good until then.
I think what I needed most was the jolt to get working on this story again. Well, I definitely got jolted! I’m doing my best to not look back, just keep adding to the end. I think that’s the hardest part. The ol’ internal editor’s clamoring to tear it apart.
“Back in your box!” I say. “You can play with chapter breaks and word choice later.”
…and wow, that’s a lot of writing. Yeah, you did get your whole sequence down in less than a chapter. It was very impressive. It’ll be more impressive after your re-write…
Nano is working for you 🙂
obviously i can’t leave you alone for a second. you were going nano free. what happened?
I’m sure you can do it!!!!! make me proud oh little one
Thanks, Jodi! I’m glad I took the month of October to sit and think about the things Dunne, Hauge and UNK were saying. It’s really helping now that I’m forcing myself to sit down and write so much every day again. I’d been plowing along at this rate back at the end of August when I slammed up against the “OMG, I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT I’M DOING!” wall and gave up trusting my instinct to go in search of craft books to fill in the gaps.
LOL, Bria. I’m glad to hear you had a good time at the retreat. What happened was DH asked why I didn’t think I could do it and then shot down my objections (ok they were pretty flimsy, except for the whole real life obligations stuff). But mostly, I succumbed to peer pressure.
I also suspect it was caving to the ingrained work ethic DH and I built up in college.. if one of us had to work on a paper/thesis/etc so did the other. With everyone else out there pounding away on their keyboards, how could I sit idly by another month with my goal of finishing something still hanging over my head?
Ok. More on my progress this week on the next post.