Showing posts with label winner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label winner. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Greetings from NaNo Land

Music Influence: Waterhaul/Waterhaul II by 36 Crazyfists

(Waterhaul, A Snow Capped Romance, 2004)


(Waterhaul II, Collisions and Castaways, 2011)

 



 

Today is the last day of National November Writing Month. There are thousands of people out there right now pounding their fingers over the worn out plastic keys of their keyboard furiously trying to hit to fifty thousand by 11:59 PM tonight.

 

I won't be one of them.

 

Over the weekend, I completed my NaNo journey limping across the finish line at just over 51,000 words. By no means is this novel complete. Only my NaNo journey of 2011 is complete. For another year I am one of the many who warred with themselves to write 50k in 30 days. For another year I am a NaNo winner.

 

It wasn't easy. I have about six different beginnings. I have a bunch of stuff I just wrote to be sitting at the computer, putting words down about something- anything- in order to keep on track with the daily word count. On the weekends I spent countless hours staring at the blinking cursor on my blank page trying to come up with anything to keep going.

 

I was plagued by doubts, mistrusting of my writing instinct, confused by my lack of direction.

 

But NaNo is not the time to second guess yourself. You just have to push through it. Work through the problems at a later date. Write whatever comes to mind, regardless of how it actually fits into the story. When you get stuck, move to a different scene. These are my mantras. Keep moving. In this instances, it is one finger after another. Keeping pounding away at the keyboard. Stop doubting yourself. Put all of your mixed emotions into the writing. Pour everything out on the page. Just don't stop whatever you're doing.

 

Hellie talked about goals on Monday. Goals are great. NaNo is a monthly goal. Every November I pledge to write 50k in 30 days. I aspire to write 20k every month outside of November. That's 5k a week. Doable for someone like me who does most of their writing on Saturday night/Sunday morning. What keeps you going when everything seems to be heading down the drain? Do you give yourself incentives to achieve your goals? What gets you sitting in front of your monitor with your fingers on the keyboard?