NaNoWriMo, Days 13, 14, 15 and 16

NaNoWriMo, Day 13 - 22610

Work was a little rough today. Not physically, but mentally, because it was my first night outside of my training group. I'm more or less an official regular employee, in that nobody much cares anymore about helping me along. And I had to sort at one of the worst stations, because I was too stupid to grab a good one early.

Which means I didn't spend too much time thinking about where my novel was going. I did spend a little though.

And as is always the case, when I got home to get to it, I didn't write any of that. Instead, I inserted 923 lines into the second chapter, in a moment of clarity that simultaneously makes that chapter a hell of a lot more interesting (if you go back and read my first couple of days of blogging, I was worried that those chapters were boring) and also characterized two characters I was worried I had not characterized enough.

PLUS, all this builds up the current chapter, the one I ended up not writing, so that it doesn't seem to come out of no where, and therefore, have no emotional connection with the reader at all.

This is one of the best parts of prose writing. Poetry, for me at least, is often all about finding the perfect sentences, and sounds. It's about ideas too, definitely, but a lot of the time I spend is purely about the language itself. It's what I love most about writing.

But prose has be focus on something else. I can spend all night working on the language of my novel. And I'm sure I will, over many weeks of revision. But there's something like a puzzle at play as well. Trying to figure out what is it, structurally, that elicits emotion. The timing, chapter breaks, knowing just how much information to give at any given time.

Lord knows if I am tapping that spring at all or not. But I'm definitely glad I'm trying to. That I'm thinking about it.

NaNoWriMo, Day 14 - 25237

I hit the halfway mark! This is the first real marker for my success at finishing a novel, because I could never be certain, before now, if I had ever written as much as I've already written. But I've never gotten as far as halfway, that is for sure. (Note: The internet was messing up last night when I was trying to post this, and so I just went to bed. Hahaha)

It's strange to think that I may have a finished work, some day. The novel doesn't quite feel half finished, though, so it may go on to be more than 50000 words long. We'll see.

I wrote one of the more difficult chapters last night. And I'm not certain I actually got over the difficult part, rather than just skip over it in the interest of typing the rest of the story up, but the second draft, in this case, is the time to do the research and fix the inconsistencies. 2627 words for one chapter; not only are my chapters becoming more complex, but they're growing in length as well. I don't know what that means, exactly.

It's strange, though. The entire time I am writing this novel, I am thinking about the next. What I'll do differently, and how much better it will be. haha. That's not to say that I believe this one is a lost cause, but it's almost like working on a table, and being nearly done when you learn how to use an electric sander, or a level. This table might end up being decent, or even great. But you're already looking forward to the next to try out your new tools.

NaNoWriMo, Day 15 - 27020

1783 words, and I would have sworn it was something closer to 4000. Man it's hard to judge word counts by the time it takes to write them.

I just got done with a really fun chapter. There's one character in particular who I love to write about much more than the main characters. All the writing books suggest that if you find that this happens, consider making the 'main' characters supporting characters, and follow this much more interesting character, but I disagree entirely. There are some characters who are interesting BECAUSE you rarely see them. Gandalf was awesome in Lord of the Rings, but I honestly think that the story would have lost a lot of its magic (lol) if it had been about Gandalf, or even Strider or Legolas, instead of the incredibly average hobbits.

Likewise, the original Star Wars gave us the perfect dose of Darth Vader. Then they gave us the prequels all about Darth Vader. All Vader, all of the time. And it was a terrible idea.

Some people are best left as enigmas. Must I really be forced to see Darth Vader pod-racing as a 7 year old kid?

NaNoWriMo, Day 16 - 28413

Augh. It was a rough night, especially at work. I got home and after 3 and a half hours, I've only written 1393 words. I mean, I wasn't typing that entire time. But that's part of the problem. haha.

All things considered, I wrote much more than I might have expected, but that doesn't count for much when it's still well short of the night's goal.

Look. You can tell how strung up and unable to write I am by this entry. hahaha.

More to come tomorrow. I promise.