NaNo-Nuts

larocca --

Well, that is just awesome!

I'm not sure if I should say this ...

Yesterday I just couldn't get it done. I stared at the screen. I gnashed my teeth and howled in despair. Then I did the unthinkable.

I opened a new document and started typing. In my mind, I believed I was starting over. And considered never coming back here to admit it.

But this morning in the shower, it occurred to me that I simply jumped to another part of the story. That the first part needs heavy revision, but it is necessary to build the character & so that there isn't so much backstory to work into the book.

Where am I today? Still in the orange, but now up to 13,042. Still way behind, but not so terrible. And two more days of work time before I go back to being a mom all day & a writer for only an hour each morning & during the occasional naptime.

Hoooooo. I'm so glad I bought the ergonomic keyboard two months ago...

And a brief whine ... I'm sick! Terrible cold. Bleh. I feel icky. Looking at the bright side, all this coughing is helping me develop some muscle tone in my stomach while I just sit here typing, LOL.

wee


ETA: If you haven't noticed, some of the people on this thread have some really awesome word counts ... keep going everyone!

Hmmm... Nano is just about over. How did YOU do?

I got to around 20,000 words. I'm not sure, really, because I started writing different scenes in several different word documents, then began a new "main" document & I've been feeding them in, rewriting them a little as I insert them. Also have bracketed [insert scene A here] bits throughout. It is a mess, but I know where it is going. My word count is estimated because I have some scenes repeated as I've been inserting & rewriting, and I'm keeping the originals for reference.

In terms of Nano, I've failed spectacularly. However, during this time I had company for a week, got so sick that I spent several days wrapped up on the couch with a hot toddy, barely moving, and had a long weekend with my hubby home to entertain me (but get nothing done).

In terms of my own writing, around 20,000 words is the most I've ever done in a month. And here I am, up early, writing before the kids are up. Nano for me was a motivation to get into the regular habit of writing. But it's a big deal to me not to torture my family with my writing -- my number one job is still my hubby & kids. In another year I'll be home all day by myself & can really crank it out. The days when I had time to myself, I could get 3,000-5,000 words written depending on where I was in the story & how sure I was of what was coming next, whether I had to look anything up. In a few years, Lord Willing, I can be prolific. For now, I'm working on just writing regularly. LOL.

So in that sense, Nano was a success. I have a huge head-start-boost to my story & I'm motivated to finish. This is the longest I've worked on anything, too, and still had fresh ideas. By now I would typically be banging my head on the desk & deleting all my files, starting something different.

Also, I learned that I am still more or less a linear person, but I get bored with certain parts of it sometimes. If I'm bored, the reader will be, too, right? So I can jump around, write different scenes, skip the parts that I'm not sure of yet or don't feel like writing today, and still get something accomplished. It is stupid to be hung up on something like, "I must write this in order!" but nonetheless that has been huge for me, to just open a new word doc & write what appeals to me today.

This morning I'm very excited to look in my Buddies list on Nano and PastMidnight creeping up on 50,000! Very nice! How did everyone end up?


wee

Congratulations, larocca!

And how did you end up in Chiang Mai? I have been there before, in 1998, but only for a couple of days (went all over Thailand for nearly a month). If it hadn't been for the fact that my college back in the U.S. was already paid for & I felt too bad to not go finish, I would have just stayed in Thailand. I thought about it pretty hard!



wee