a little coffee

I kept on chugging this week…

Grand total: 55,165!

I’m (finally) feeling excited about this. A novel.

In celebration I should run outside in the five inches of snow- naked.

Without this NaNoWriMo business, I certainly wouldn’t have taken seriously even the thought to write a novel, not now anyway. Have to say, although I was married to my computer the past 30 days, this was a great experience. Just feeling the creative energy and watching plot twists unfold and characters develop and the occasional lovely metaphor come tumbling out made me feel like a writer.

Now I’ll let the Project marinate for a couple weeks before re-reading all 110 pages single-spaced pages and asking myself: do you really want to spend a year of your life editing a hot, holey mess?

Hmmmm……………….

Just a quick update for y’all: the writing retreat was a success! We arrived at the little cabin by the lake in Indiana later than we anticipated. Tired and hungry, I put forth a poor showing of 791 words before I closed the laptop and indulged in pizza, wine, board games and poker with my four fellow writers.

Rise and shine on Saturday and away I went…to victory! I hit 50,000 words and just kept going, ending the day’s writing session with over 51, 000 words!

What next?

To be honest, I’m feeling a little lazy and deflated after all that. I made the goal early, can’t I stop? No. Keep on writing, says NaNoWriMo. You’ll only be giving yourself more material to work with, should you choose to rewrite your novel.

After returning home from work, the gym and eating dinner, I found myself with plenty of time on my hands…and know I have a hot, holey mess to work with…but I can try to make it a tad better by filling in some of those holes while I gather strength for a complete read through. So I sucked it up and sat down at the computer. But at least now is gone the stress of climbing the noveling mountain- and no more 5:30 AM starts! Woop!

I’ll keep on going through Thursday!

Someone recently said that this whole NaNoWriMo thing was a bad idea. I chuckled. Because it does sound like a bad idea. What insane person wants to devote their mental powers to hammering out a reeeeeeeeealy awful 50,000-word novel in a month?

Me! What I’m learning is that this is, maybe counter-intuitively, conducive to creativity. Why? Because you are actually creating. If you’re like me, with a full-time job that does not involve writing, there’s nothing pushing you to sit in your chair to write- especially when there’s a new episode of 30Rock on. These deadlines are the things that make you write. And who cares if the first draft is good or not? No one has to see it. I know my first drafts are absolute crap. Always. My writing group will tell you. Besides, there is no conceivable way the first draft is going to be perfect. Even if you spend an hour trying to get a paragraph right the first time around, odds are something will still be wrong with it. You may even have to cut it out. You just don’t know until you’re done, until you’ve stumbled through all the grammatical errors, underdeveloped characters and flaky plot what your story actually is.

So this is a good idea- for me. To just plow away and write down any old thought that pops in my head. It’s exhilarating! The rush when there’s suddenly an idea on the page you didn’t plan on, when characters just tell you what they want to do, instead of the other way around. This is why I love writing. This joy of creation.

Day 14: 2, 129

Day 15: 2, 234

So yesterday, Friday, was the first day I didn’t meet my word count. Only 1, 146! But, that was just what I wrote in the morning. I decided to take my night off because my fellow NaNos and I got together in the evening to vent about our projects, drink some wine and play some games.

But I got cranking again this morning with Chris:
“Bet I can hit 300 words before you.”
“Oh, really?” An eyebrow raise.
Challenge.
Glaring at each other across our laptops.
Accepted.
A silent voice yells: “ready, set, go!”
And we’re off! Chris and I type, fingers flying off across the keys.
“120!”
“Damn it! 97.” Type real fast for a several minutes.
Yell out: “206!”
“Damn it! 183.” Type real fast again.
“318!”
“Ohhh… 274.”
“Ah! I win! Now buy me something!” Chris looks at me and I realize we should have actually bet something. Oh, well. Next time.

Writing with someone, someone that is under the same unbending deadline, fosters competition and so increases your word count. I cannot let my boyfriend out-write me! So your fingers fly across the keyboard. Any word, image, idea that pops into your brain is good enough- because it increases your word count. Which is really what this project is about- seeing what your creative juices do when you’re forced to write. You don’t have time to hem and haw about what may be good or bad, what may work or not. You really won’t know until you’ve finished and re-read all 50,000 words! hKLdghl…what’s that word supposed to be? Who cares, it counts! (Ok, maybe not quite : )

Todays’a total: 3,044!