Winning?
28 Nov 2011 2 Comments
in NanNo 2011, Writerly
Yesterday, I crossed the 50,000 word mark on my Nanowrimo novel. Technically, this makes me a “winner” in the entire process, but as I thought about it, I find “winning” a terribly strange concept in this context.
Do you only win if you hit 50,000 words?
What if you make 50,000 words but you hate all of them? I’d say that’s not exactly a “win” but then again…
What if you only make 20,000? ONLY twenty thousand words…so sad, what a loser.
I suppose there are degrees of “victory” here. I think anyone who put new words on blank pages “wins,” because they’ve set out on a path many say they will do “someday” yet never do. And even if you only did five pages, it’s more than you had before you started, yes?
That’s a victory.
Maybe you wrote fifteen thousand words and discovered over the course of those words that you hated your concept, it was trash and would never work, and oh look a shiny spoon! Victory?
Maybe you discovered you really aren’t a writer of novels — you’re better suited for graphic novels. Victory.
Maybe you wrote twelve pages of new poetry based on an idea you thought was a novel. Victory.
Whatever you did…victory.
Fifty thousand words is relative. I have another thirty thousand to go on this book — at least. But writing is what I do, so onward I go. That’s a victory, too.
Day 18
18 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
in NanNo 2011
Onward we roll!
“They’re kin to Gabriel?” she asked.
Finn laughed and helped Pip sit up. “Well, they aren’t all like that, but they do enjoy stealing horses.” Finn pulled a leaf from Pip’s hair, and then a stick, and then a piece of yellow candy. “You are like a vending machine…”
“If vending machines come in naked, wet, and pixie-knotted,” she murmured, rubbing at her head where the small female had been knotted on. She had no idea what a vending machine was, but watched as Finn pulled more leaves and debris from her hair. “I’ve been here what… Two days now.” She closed her eyes briefly, thinking how lovely it would be to sleep again. “Is every day like this?”
Finn’s laugh was a low rumble. He gently bundled her hair at the nape of her neck and squeezed, lake water streaming down her back and pattering into the ground.
“Only since you got here,” he said.
Day 11
11 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
in NanNo 2011
So, that’s a quarter of the book. Wow. 
(A quarter based on the full 80k length I anticipate, not the 50k one attempts in November.)
This week, I’ve met two characters I didn’t plan on, and they are awesome. I’m going to trust in this discovery and see where it takes me.
The next quarter of the book needs to take my heroine on a very specific journey, so I’m hoping to block that out this weekend. By the end of the next 20k, there will be yet another turning point. Or there should be, if everyone cooperates.
I also need to make a list of things I have done…
Also, I think this oddly only encompasses the heroine’s first DAY in this new place. 20k for one day? Wow. I dunno about that pace.
I suppose pace is the thing I worry about most, thinking I haven’t mastered it when it comes to book-length works. I can only keep trying.
Chapter one
02 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
in NanNo 2011
The men didn’t have to drain the lake to find her; the body, wrapped in plastic bunting, washed up on the shore.
Chapter one is complete today, and the book took a turn I didn’t expect. This action is part of the heroine’s story yes, but I didn’t expect it so soon. And yet, it works. I’m trusting the gut and moving onward. I think all of the main players are in place.
And if not, we go back. Writing is not linear.
NaNoWriMo 2011
01 Nov 2011 2 Comments
in NanNo 2011, Writerly
I am taking part in NaNoWriMo again, because the timing is perfect for the start of the next book I want to write. (The book I wrote last year for NaNo is searching for an agent at present.)
I thought I would try to blog the process, too, because I find every book is different, but some things remain the same.
This morning, for instance. I was gripped by the same old fear. Fear of that blank page, fear of starting, fear of fucking up. Though this is chiefly what first drafts are always about. We are allowed to mess up, so long as we get words on the page. They can go in the right order later.
Despite my enthusiasm this past week to begin writing, all of that was gone this morning. There was only dread. I knew the characters, could picture them, but that didn’t matter. OMG all that white space! It can never be filled!
Sure it can be. One page at a time. Don’t focus on 50,000 words (or even 80,000 which is my ultimate goal with this project). Focus on today’s task. All I have to do is write about a lost girl seeing a dead body and wandering into a bakery. I can do that.
I did that.
And so it begins.
