Tuesday 8 November 2011

Day 7 Blues

I'm still going on my NaNoWriMo project, and have hit 12,500 words. Yesterday was tough. I've had to write past general lethargy, and the feeling that none of my characters are doing much interest, that maybe its all a big mechanical... Lots of exploring and waiting and tension. Clearly the revision month, NaNoRevMo, will be just as tough as this month!

I was lucky enough to be getting some stitches out today. I say lucky - it meant two extra commutes and a lengthy stay in a waiting room, which gave me a chance to get about 2500 words down. Mainly of my characters waiting and exploring. Hey, I'm world and tension building...

Someone I'm following on Twitter just posted her NaNoWriMo opening on her blog, here: http://www.lauralam.co.uk/
Go read it - it's great, I think!

4 comments:

  1. Wow, that's a lot of words so far! I've never done NaNo, but I'm usually a painfully slow writer. My draft also contains a lot of waiting and exploring, but I have a better "vision" for the story now that it's done. The hard part is implementing the vision into the revisions! Anyway, good luck with NaNo!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm not really sure how I feel about NaNo yet - its great that it has got me going, and that I've gotten talking to writers from my local area and beyond. The support is a big help. Clearly the impetus that it's given to switch off the editor and keep writing is really useful.

    However, I'm not sure how many NaNovels will turn out to be classics. In terms of my story and writing.., journey... NaNo will force me to learn my craft and give me a really solid first draft to revise. I'm not going to be finished with the story by the end of November, certainly! As you say, it's maybe easier to see your vision once there are actually words on the (virtual) paper!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yay, thanks for the link! Think of it as a zero draft or basically a lengthy outline in a lot of places. If I get stuck I even write some planning in brackets and then move on. I'm usually a slow, slow writer as well, so this is fun, and it's good to see that my quality isn't that much affected by forcing myself to write so much in a day. I'm hoping afterwards I'll be a bit more productive than I was before :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I do something similar actually - I tend to outline in square brackets. It's almost as if I'm coding, rather than writing in English sometimes. Which is an interesting approach, as I can't code.

    It does encourage me to do a really in-depth outline though, which then makes it easy to fill in the blanks after. I can power through 400 words in 10 minutes if I already have an outline. If I don't... well, that's another story :D

    ReplyDelete