Even though I didn’t reach 50,000 words, I feel that my attempt at NaNoWriMo was a success. In two hours, word counts and struck-out lines (re: word counts. I can’t edit until … now) will be a thing of the past. I finally gave some of my character necessary goals and expectations and beliefs, so now a certain someone is no longer a whiny wimp who falls off of a tower. That was a bad Chapter 2. I don’t even know why I wrote that.
November has always been a very hectic month for me and I really think I would have been more motivated if it were held in July or June when people have time to do things and can sit home all day writing a novel. And then you don’t have to settle for a 50,000 word minimum either. Then I would get things done. Also, if I were doing better in Calculus from the start, I would probably also get things done. Yep. That would do it. I don’t like NaNoWriMo being about “defeating the odds” because, although you get a lot of good ideas when you’re stressed out and about to set fire to your textbooks, were it not for the fact that those cost you money and you would like that money back, who has the time to sit down and write a novel in one flat month? Things always get in the way. For me, it was two trips back home where I read a bunch and did little writing, and a period here or there when I was getting papers done. So I started opening up my file at 11 at night,and finishing at around 3 or 4 to get my writing done. And although I did a lot of good writing during that period, I could only do that four days out of the week because I had early classes on the other days. That was an inefficient system for me.
The numbers
In order to hit 50,000 words, I planned to write 2,000 words a day. which would give me a surplus of 10,000 (yay basic math!) in case I got behind. A few days, I hit just about 3,000 a day, and some other days, I only got 1,000 words written. When I hit 25,000, I had five days to write the remaining 25,000, and 5,000 words a day is a tall order for anyone, but most especially me because words make me neurotic and word counts even more so. I wrote a grand total of 1,000 something words over the break and called it a month.
Thoughts on the halfway point
26,000 words is still a pretty significant milestone. I have a prologue mostly done, I can now rewrite Chapter 1, use my current Chapter 2 (with TEH DEATH SCENE), throw in my completed Chapter 3, write a Chapter 4, use notes for Chapters 5 and 7, and make up Chapter 6 as I go along. And some more chapters just like that. See? Novel writing is easy! You just use place holders until you have to fill them with words. My favorite placeholder words are plot or characterization (and this is why I never finish a draft).
Some excerpts from THE DEATH MONTH
The great hall was lined with the portraits of forgotten men. Across one wall were the faces of pagan kings — eleven in number — painted wildly in reds, ochres: the colors of tumult. There were men with on horses, men surrounded by tropical birds, men in towns that no longer had names, buried beneath the desert sand. At the end of the wall, aligned neatly with the corner, the eleventh portrait was of a man with deep solemn eyes. Rodim had ignored this portrait before. In the war, it had been moved through the cellars of the palace. Its frame had been broken, the brightness of the object that he held had been reduced to gray, and Rodim was certain that the luster of his eyes was no longer there.
But the duke had little patience for the nature of things. He kept his windows curtained but not closed. Some part of him, he reasoned to himself, still wanted to believe in beauty. Years ago, he had tried to paint the towers of his citadel completely white. The duchess was dead, the people said amongst themselves, what else was there to do? But the rains began without warning, and a world away, as the year-long drought ended, Alexei Makarus fell into the street, watching white paint weep from his towers. Years ago. There was still white paint in the smallest fissures of the citadel’s walls and in the hollows of the city streets. When the duke stepped outside, he averted his eyes; later, he curtained his windows. Rhone had become a city tainted by his grief. He tried to contain himself in smaller and smaller spaces, filling tiny crevices of his chambers with messages to himself: The first tower is for Sagrim, my father; I have lost my wife - my hands are white and I do not know why. But his was ever the more a public despair.
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Aaron T. said:
Wow. I’ve determined I could never do NaNoWriMo. I can’t make up stories all that well. Plus, I would never get it done. I know I would procrastinate like mad.
Now, I’m pretty sure I could make a non-fiction of some sort, I think I can tell about things I’ve experienced well enough (the trick is that I remember a lot of details about my everyday life).
I might (and this is a big might) have the ability to write some sort of humour-based book. I guess I’m now using my refreshed blog for this purpose, as practice for something I will probably not write.
I have more fun writing comedy than I did about my life (which is inherently relatively boring).
Posted on December 9, 2008 8:30 PM • #