Posts Tagged ‘NaNoWriMo’

So it’s November again, and one of the reasons I pushed so hard to get everything wrapped up with the business within a week was to clear the decks and be ready for National Novel Writing Month. I have an interesting concept (I hope), and although my house is still a disaster, I was ready to go.

And I started off really well, and even getting a little ahead of schedule. But a bad day threw me off and now, sadly, I’ve ‘earned’ my first NaNo badge:

I made a donation to the Office of Letters and Light and bought a package of these buttons that you get to wear after achieving some dubious milestones, many of which are either tongue in cheek or just too funny.

“Procrastination” is for missing 3 days running and being bad, bad, bad. The graphic shows a vaccuum because when housework looks better than writing, you know you’re in trouble.

I should have been writing all weekend- that was the plan, but it hasn’t worked out that way. Tonight, after the end of the Saint’s game (which isn’t going so well at the moment Edit: 8-0, baby! Comeback kids!), I may have to earn another badge as I start to catch up:

I think that one’s self-explanatory.

Pratchett tries to show me up by writing up a storm.

I read about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in the spring and decided I’d participate when it came around in November.

Famous last words.

You’re supposed to write 50,000 words in a month- 1,667 a day if your output is consistent- and voila, you have a novel. It doesn’t have to be a good novel- it just has to be a complete one. The idea being to get out of your own way- WRITE, dammit- don’t edit. Just let the words come, even if you’re not sure they’re the right ones. And that’s one of my big problems. I’ll agonize over a paragraph, a sentence, a word…and then a bunch of time has passed and I’m nowhere. And depressed.

I’m so terribly behind right now I just can’t see how I’m going to catch up, but I’m going to take tomorrow mostly off and really plow through this weekend. If I can’t kick ass on the book, then I’ll be kicking my own ass for all time…and I can be merciless in that regard.

The funny thing is NaNoWriMo’s prep materials are all like, ‘go tell everybody what you’re doing! Tell them you’re doing this amazing, difficult thing and make them all be super duper nice to you! Make them cook and clean and rub your back every single night and tell you what a phenom you are!”

Riiiight.

That might work with lots of people, but not when you live with a real, honest to god, serious & important capital-W-Writer. Then you feel like what you’d be saying is, “Honey, I know you have actual deadlines and writerly stress and all, but I wanna go play make believe, okay?”

Plus…well, he already cooks for me, so I’m not really about to ask him to do anything else. I’m pretty spoiled already.

If you wanna kick my ass, feel free. Here’s the link to my word count- currently pitiful, but hopefully shooting rapidly upward!