NaNoWriMo Day 8: Reflections So Far 📝
Just popping by for a quick update about my first week of National Novel Writing Month. Here’s the scoop and the skinny on my progress. On this sunny November day, I feel like a bulleted list, so I think I shall. [Razzle-dazzle formatting, 🧚♀️done! ] Proceed:
I’m working on draft 2 of a novel about two sculptors that I finished a first draft of in September and purposely didn’t look at again since. I like to let first drafts marinate a few weeks while I work on other projects, so that when it’s time to edit I see what’s really there and not what I think is there. #writerproblems #tookabreaknomistake
Instead of writing new content this time, I edit a little each day. No certain word count each day. Unlike a traditional NaNoWriMo and yet in the spirit of NaNoWriMo’s creative marathon, I’m going rogue and savoring the process as it evolves each day. #keepingitcopacetic
I’m not writing at a particular time of morning, afternoon, or night. Each day has been different, but each day I’ve been both pleased with some dialogue and character insights as well as (on some other pages) frustrated by clunky first-draft stuff I’d forgotten about in my draft. #plotholesIgotem #charactersmademelaughandcrythough
One day last week, I edited three chapters around 11 pm-1 am. That was my longest writing day. Later that week, I had a four-sentence editing day one afternoon for about twenty minutes, aka: my shortest day. Most days, I averaged 2 or 3 pages in 45 minutes or so of the early evening. It’s ALL good and motivates me through the second draft, bit by bit.
Yesterday, I edited around 8 pages in a chapter where my protagonist finally has her own studio. #virginiawoolfvibes #aroomofherown For the first time in a week, I found myself adding two or three pages to a scene, rather than focusing on trimming. Both are needed and will happen in drafts 3, 4, etc., but it was refreshing to tie a bow on the first week by being so back into the characters’ POVs that new ideas were percolating again. #writergoals 🌻
Supporting my fellow intrepid and awesome NaNoWriMo 2021 authors! How’s it going? What projects are you working on? I want the tea. Merci beaucoup, and write on! ☕📝
Photo Courtesy of Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash.com .
NaNoWriMo 2021
I'm looking forward to NaNoWriMo in just a few weeks. I'll be writing each day of November, although probably in different genres and different projects and likely less than 1500 words a day (shaking up the rules a wee bit is part of the fun, right? 😁). Still, participate by writing each day I shall. 🙌🖊📄
Cheering on my fellow writer peeps who are either definitely going to participate or who are thinking about it. If you want, drop a line below about the project you want to write/work on.
NaNoWriMo 2019-- Check! :)
Hearty congrats to my fellow NaNoWriMo 2019 writers.
We made it! [High-five.]
A NaNoWriMo Interview with Christin Rice :)
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash
Happy Week Two of NaNoWriMo November!
After clocking in my writing this morning, my tally is holding steady at 8,181 words and counting. I’m 100% certain that I wouldn’t have written half this much without the daily writing practice.
But don’t take my word for it: I’m thrilled to introduce fellow novelist, MFA graduate, mom extraordinaire of a super-cute baby daughter, and all-around awesome friend, Christin Rice, who kindly talked with me earlier today about her NaNoWriMo 2019 journey.
*What inspired you to take part in the challenge?
I really like a short term challenging challenge, especially for writing. It propels me and a project forward to have a short-term focus, knowing I can work at a pace that would be unsustainable in the long-term. In my pre-baby life, I could do back to back challenges like that, but with a nine-month old I am focusing on just the month of November.
I also was realizing how good the timing was: December writing is always interrupted by holiday stuff. I travel in January whenever possible.
And my baby turns one in February which is my self-imposed deadline to figure out when/how/what to go back to work. Which means if I want some pages of first draft, November is my best bet. That's good motivation to just get going and keep going.
*What project are you working on?
It's a new novel, and man it feels GREAT to work on first draft fiction. I haven't done that in a year because I've been focused on revising a novel, then writing some creative nonfiction, and oh yeah, having a baby.
The novel is not about IVF and infertility, but that plays a big part in what is happening in the character's lives.
It's really fun to mine some of my direct experience, but put it in a very different context and explore how complicated it can all be through two complicated female characters (I looooove complicated female characters).
*Anything else you'd like to share about the NaNo process?
Don't revise while writing!
Don't let yourself read more than one paragraph back, and that's just to ground yourself on where to go next. You can revise in December, but no editors in your head in November.
Check out more of Christin’s amazing writing at her blog: Invincible Summer.
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Taking your own NaNoWriMo 2019 journey? I’d love to talk to you about your project. Email away.
Photo by Tim Mossholder at unsplash.com .
