It is November 25, 2007 and my cell phone shows 8:32pm. This is important because about 10 minutes ago, I finished NaNoWriMo. I surpassed 50k and finished the first draft of a pretty weak story. While I didn’t start attaching to the characters until the last two or three pages, I still feel the customary freaked-outedness that follows shortly after finishing something of any great length. I don’t often finish things, so I still don’t really know how to deal with this appropriately. I know that the story is awaiting a deadly editing process but that doesn’t change the fact that this huge thing is over and I am suddenly left with a gigantic hole in my psyche. And in my chest.
Lately I haven’t been able to sleep and I can’t decide if it’s because of NaNo or the millions of other things that are currently crushing me into a pancake. I want to go all fetal and shut out the entire world. I feel very exposed recently, very raw and untamed. What did I learn from this entire process? That I miss it. That I miss those brief moments when the words come easily and flawlessly. I look forward to doing this again next year and to pick up on things I have left to gather dust (Adam/Lucinda, jesus I’ve been wanting to tackle that one all month), and I’m really glad I decided to use NaNoWriMo as the way to jolt myself from a non-writing existence.
Right now, I’m going to step away from all of this and read the book I started this morning in an effort to steer my mind away from the story and all this insane word count business.
Well. NaNoWriMo is winding down and I’m watching the 30,000+ words I’ve written leap off a cliff shortly after setting themselves on fire. The story is devoid of a plot and the characters are as flat as…your computer screen. However, I’ve committed myself to this little project and I intend to see it through to the end. But damn, it’s hard. Really hard. I plan to make a more detailed post when NaNo is over and done and completed and survived.
31856/50000
So, NaNoWriMo has been going almost a week and I think I’m doing pretty well, so far. I’ve logged a lot of words in the past few days, which feels pretty good. Some of my coworkers are starting to realize what exactly I’m doing and have been encouraging me, which feels even better. However, the quality of my writing is absolutely disgusting. It’s pure fluff, which I hate to write and am not that good at anyway, and the characters keep doing bizarre things that I don’t entirely approve of. Some characters have appeared out of nowhere. Skeet, for the example, popped up and made his presence known by being vulgar. He’s the black sheep brother of a friend of the MC’s. Another surprise character is the MC’s mother, who is bitchy and stupid and a pain in the ass.
What am I learning from this whole process? That I miss writing. I really do. Writing, pushing toward word counts feels so right and good and perfect. Where it goes is completely unknown and unpredictable, which is so thrilling that I’m almost jittery.
Monica and I met by chance. It was one of those moments that you see in a movie or read in book. We were both in the produce section of the grocery store and we reached for the same orange. There was a glance, a shy smile, and some nervous conversation. She gave me her number, I called her the next day, and we had a date that weekend. On our first date, we forgot about our plans because we got swept up in talking about our lives, our families, our goals and dreams for the future. We were inseparable from then on. We moved in together after two months and began talking about marriage at three. But we showed restraint. We waited until we had been together for nearly two years before getting engaged. Monica and I wanted to sort out certain things in our lives — finances, careers, etc., — before we took our plans to marry public. After our engagement, we waited three months before setting a date, which was a year from then. Which was now. Well, three week ago, if one wanted to talk specifics.
Day 1: 1,088/50,000
Day 2 (so far): 1,975/50,000
I’ve been busy today at work, so I haven’t had much time to sneak in writing. I’m looking forward to really churning out some stuff this weekend.
I just found out that my parent-less main character has an overbearing mother. Who knew?!
So far, the water is great. I feel unusually good about writing at the moment. The story is nothing stellar so far and I think I’d call the writing sub-par (already, ha!) but I chalk that up to the fact that I started last night when half asleep and have been at work all day today with no music to write to. But like I said, so far, so good. I’m feeling fairly optimistic, so I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts. Hope everyone else is doing well!
In 5 hours and 47 minutes, NaNoWriMo will officially begin. On the east coast, that is. I feel ready. I’m getting antsy. It’s all I’m really thinking about. I feel as though something miraculous is about to happen. But never fear, netizens, I am preparing for utter defeat. Or at least some stellar mediocrity.
So…bring on the words!
ETA: Find me on the NaNo site!
NaNoWriMo starts in 10 days. I am both excited and nauseated by this. Excited because I stand the chance of getting swept up into a month-long novel orgy, a full month during which to immerse myself in words and imagination and creativity. I decided a few months back that I would participate this year as part of my re-immersion into writing. Enough of the stupid hiatus! Let’s kick ourselves in the ass with a 50k month-long writing project. That’s just the ticket.
However, I am sick at the thought of writing. An entire month of writing. A month of plots and characters and words. Oh my god. 50,000 words. What am I thinking? I don’t know what I’m going to write. Oh my god. New characters? Holy. Shit. I am screwed. Absolutely screwed. 50,000 words, new characters, PLOTS?!?!
A lot of people are researching, taking notes, sketching characters, building elaborate timelines. I? Am silently having a crisis. I have a vague idea of a plot. Something that has been done, of course, a thousand times over. It stands to be mildly humorous at times – the kind of humor that one finds after some sort of tragic event. But I don’t do humorous too well and I’m afraid of trying to take it on for fifty. thousand. words. The same story line could go a different way, the very sad and depressing and emo way. A very me trademark. It isn’t something I’ve written until someone is suffering unnecessarily. I just tried to scribble down some ideas. I have three names, which is good as they’re the names of the three major players thus far. So that’s something. I know I will be writing from a man’s point of view because this is strangely simple for me. Aside from that? I have no ideas.
Kick-offs start this weekend and I’m thinking that I will spend the weekend doing something that inspires me and relaxes me. Perhaps a day taking pictures at local cemeteries and universities (and botanical gardens). I will spend some time building ultimate playlists for a variety of moods. I will concentrate on not freaking out over a lack of plot or ideas. Because this will be just fine. 50,000 words in a month? Psh. Child’s play.
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