So, as you've probably guessed, I've signed on to do NaNoWriMo. If you haven't noticed that, you need to look up at the Title and Description of this blog. Go ahead, take a minute, I want us to all be on the same page.
All caught up? Good.
Anyway, as I've mentioned before, I had initially concocted this story as my idea for last years NaNoWriMo, and had to call it quits a couple of days in, when I realized the story was just far too big to pound out without a battle plan. Now, while I wasn't surprised that I had to drop out last year, really before I'd even begun, it was a little sad.
In 2010, I'd jumped head first into NaNoWriMo and managed to complete my 50k words despite all the shit life threw in my way. I felt like a goddamn champ for doing it too. Getting up with the sun and chugging coffee while I pounded out a chapter of pure genius (quiet you!). That story was very different in tone to the project last/this year, and I'll admit I had a better handle on it then I did in my attempt last year.
The fact remains that NaNoWriMo is a bitch. It requires finding time to write on even the busiest days. On the NaNoWriMo site they talk about how little time a day writing the 1,667 words a day to meet the goal actually takes.
Those people are goddamn liars.
Honest to god, working on NaNo in 2010 it required at the very least 2 hours a day, sometimes more. That means basically locking yourself away (figuratively if not literally) every day to get some real writing done. I remember being at my in-laws over Thanksgiving, and everyone else was watching movies... and there I am on the sofa in another room trying my best to punch out 2,000 words because I was already behind. It really sucked.
Writing is a solitary endeavor, I totally understand that. And I understand that under deadlines, like in any other job, you occasionally have to miss things to get the job done. The thing that sucks about NaNoWriMo is that it takes place around a major holiday that people use to gather. Which means that to continually do NaNoWriMo means to continually miss some of that time.
The biggest problem with NaNoWriMo is the absolute insecurity that again I will brick wall on this project and won't meet my word goal. Beyond that is the insecurity that once NaNoWriMo ends, that I'll fail to finish the other 50k or so words needed to make a full length novel. Maybe that should be their new slogan:
NaNoWrimo- Be insecure for a month and beyond.
Then again, NaNoWriMo is great because of that insecurity. You are forced to write crap for NaNoWriMo. Chapters will be terrible, stray plot lines will go everywhere. Yet, in the end, you will have a first, or as Carrie Vaughn has called it (and I think I will too) a "zero draft". Which is miles ahead of not having anything.
That doesn't mean a single soul is ever going to see that zero draft. I've tried showing people my zero drafts and I don't feel I ever got anything useful from the process. It just made me feel awkward and made it weirder for me to alter what I'd written in order to make it fit things that happened later.
Anyway, that's enough of my whining. The only way to push forward is to shut the hell up and just do it, I guess. So.. tally ho, I guess.
Until the next time I need to vent my worries over this project....
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