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Nov 12

NaNoWriMo Report #2

by CSS

NaNoWriMo ParticipantThis is my second report on my progress toward my goal of completing a 50,000 word novel by November 30 as part of National Novel Writing Month. Read more of my thoughts on NaNoWriMo.

I’m getting behind. My goal was to write 20,000 words by Saturday the 10th. It’s now Monday, and I’m sitting at 17,519. The minimum I should have achieved by the end of yesterday is 18,337. That’s not very far behind, but I’m starting to lose hope that I’ll catch up any time soon.

My problem is not a lack of motivation. The actual writing has been easier than I thought it would be. I’m a little nervous saying that, as though I’m going to jinx my creativity by admitting it’s flowing well. When I get stuck, it’s usually not for long. Until a few days ago, I didn’t have a clear idea how the story would end, but I think I have that figured out now. I’m just reaching the exciting part of my story where I’m done with a lot of the build-up and get to plunge into the action.

But the tiredness I felt in my wrists at the end of last weekend’s big writing push has turned into pain. Part of me wants to just write through the discomfort, because I don’t want this motivation to disappear. Committing to NaNoWriMo has been the best thing I’ve done for my writing since starting this blog. The rest of me, the smarter me, I’m afraid, knows that I should rest my wrists as much as possible so this doesn’t turn into chronic pain.

Because it’s impossible for me to not type and mouse at all (both work and school depend on it), I feel I should either give up on NaNo or stop blogging temporarily, maybe both. But I’m too stubborn to do either. Instead, I’ve taken a few days off writing and done some research on what I can do to ease my pain and begin writing again.

So to keep up my interest in writing on the days I take off to rest my wrists, I surf the NaNo forums and the blogs of other writers participating in NaNoWriMo. I’ve been spending far too much time reading in the NaNo subforum, NaNoWriMo Ate My Soul. One of the threads there is about other writers with hand injuries and how they’re coping. The upside of reading so much is that at least I’m staying motivated. The NaNo Monkeys podcast has also been good for a few minutes diversion every day.

If you’re interested in seeing what others have to say about NaNo, try some of these bloggers. Some of them are blogging about their experiences, as I am. Others are actually blogging their daily writing.

NaNoWriMo

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Nov 6

What I Learned From Signing Up For NaNoWriMo

by CSS

This post is an entry in the What I Learned From . . . group writing project at Middle Zone Musings.

Forgive me for babbling on and on about the benefits of National Novel Writing Month, but when I saw this group writing project announced on Middle Zone Musings, the first thing I thought of was how much I’ve learned already from NaNo just from signing up. Even though I’m only about a fifth of the way through the 50,000 words I need to write in November, I’ve learned:

I can be amazingly productive when I’m sufficiently motivated. I talked a little last week about all the preparations I did before NaNo. Basically, I surprised myself by doing more housework in a day than I’d done in weeks, including tackling a cleaning project I’d been putting off for months. I also worked ahead on homework for what may be the first time in my life. Most importantly, I did all this without the usual 1:1 correspondence of work to procrastination. Amazing. I should decide to write a novel every time the apartment gets dirty.

I can focus. This shouldn’t be an earthshattering revelation, but I was starting to wonder. I’ve noticed lately that when I’m reading a slow-loading forum (like the NaNo forums), I start a thread loading, then I switch to Google Reader to skim half a blog post, then I switch back to the NaNo thread, and so on. Some days, my attention is fragmented like this for hours.

So I was glad to find out that I can still focus. When I get into a good flow with my novel, I can write for half an hour without looking up. And in that time, I can crank out 1,000 words. This is a big deal for me. Many of my former novel attempts have ended around 4,000 words, and that pitiful amount took long, exhausting days. I look at my word count for NaNo and I’m just astounded that I’ve produced so much in such a short amount of time.

I like to write. This shouldn’t be news either. But because I was always giving up on other writing projects, I was starting to doubt that I actually liked to write. I knew I liked to create stories (i.e. scribbling notes about characters and their troubles), but when it came to writing it out word by agonizing word, I always stammered and quit. The forced pace of NaNoWriMo has let me finally give myself permission to fail horribly. And that has freed me to enjoy writing again, for its own sake.

I’m looking forward to the other lessons that NaNoWriMo will teach me about myself and my writing. I’m sure there will be many. I still have 40,000 words and 24 days to go.

Inspiration NaNoWriMo

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