Chronicling my embarkation into my own personal world of writing. I do not have a destination in mind. My only hope is to make some sense of this compelling desire to create with words.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Bowing out for this year

I chose not to write yesterday. I also chose to not write again today.

I am not happy cramming writing like this. It feels like work.

I learned that it takes a huge amount of preparation to write a story in a month at this kind of pace. Character development. Key scenes. I was not prepared enough and had not developed my free writing skill to the extent needed to keep going. I wasn’t happy writing meaningless text and dialogue that I wasn’t sure would for a logical plot.

I take 18 weeks to train for a marathon when I commit. I wouldn’t ever show up on the day of a marathon without putting in that training. I think that’s what I did with this writing marathon and it hurt.

I wasn’t happy working long days then hiding out in a room by myself to struggle with writing. I wasn’t happy giving up running and spending time with my wife to write.

I’ve decided I need to re-evaluate how writing fits into my life right now. I get great satisfaction when I read my writing most of the time. I have received plenty of compliments on my writing style.

I also know that I truly enjoy writing non-fictional pieces, like my opinions, my experiences and my lessons from other people. I want to find a way to writing these types of pieces more frequently.

For now, I will not push to finish NaNoWriMo. It was a hard decision to make. I set this goal, and for now I will not achieve it.

However, I am proud that I wrote 8,000 words in six days. I will consider trying another year, and be extremely proud that my writing has progressed so dramatically this year. I am also proud of my courage to give it a shot.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Day 4 -- 6,723 Words Total - ON TRACK

If I hadn’t said it already, this is an extremely difficult goal. I am proud to say that I am on track after four days. It has NOT been easy, especially when dealing with the guilt of leaving my wife and mother-in-law sitting without me in the living room so I could write.

I’ve done ten marathons in the last 6 years. This feels harder than a marathon psychologically. The difference is that I train for my marathons usually in 18-week increments leading up to the race. Not in the case of this writing marathon.

I am getting the words down. I can’t say everything flows together. In fact, I am skipping around from scene idea to scene idea. I haven’t figured out yet if and how what I have written will comprise a cohesive plot. I am sticking to my outline, but my outline was fairly loose.

I found an approach that works for me. I picked a particular scene that I knew I wanted to write and took a blank screen. I gave myself 60 mintes to free write on that scene. The rule is “DON’T DELETE OR EDIT”. I knocked out 1,000 words in 54 minutes. Some of it is good quality writing, most of it – well, who knows…

I’m feeling the excitement of the NaNoWriMo journey. Keep writing!

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Three days = 4,505 words - Got to keep focus and maximize output

Wow, this is really challenging.

I am slightly behind schedule. However, I have decent reasons. #1: My mother-in-law came in Thursday night, and #2: It was my wife’s birthday yesterday. I simply cannot ditch my family to write whenever I feel like it. I had to spend time with them today and yesterday.

All and all, I am in decent shape.

The biggest challenge about NaNoWriMo so far is maximizing output in the time I have available. I thought I’d be able to do 1,500-1,800 words an hour. I’m not anywhere near that.

It makes me realize that I have not done nearly enough planning on characters, setting and plot. I just need to keep writing – despite any holes or inconsistencies.

I will make up the 500 words I am short as well as another minimum 1,667 tomorrow.

We gain an hour tonight. Yes!

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Day 1 Complete - 1,670 words

I completed what I hope will be my hardest day of this project. I spent at least 3 plus hours working on my writing today—about 3 times longer than I hoped I would for this many words.

I need to stop editing. I just need to write. Stop worrying about the quality of dialogue and sequence of ideas. Just keep writing. I do not have time to deal with the internal critic.

I feel really proud that I have begun, particularly since I had a very busy day at work today.

Day 1 is complete. I am happy – for now.