NaNoWriMo, Days 3 and 4

NaNoWriMo, Day 4 - 10358

In case any of you are wondering about my days being slightly off, I work third shift, and write after I get off of work, so my days are slightly longer than they should be.

Today was my day off, the day I promised myself I'd do some catching up on my novel, since I wrote less than a hundred words yesterday. And I wasted the whole day, as it pertains to writing (except for the part where I attending a poetry reading of Katerina Stoykova-Klemer, from her new book "The Air Around the Butterfly.").

And while I have been incredibly tired all day, I made the decision to stay up as if I am working, in order to try to keep my sleep schedule consistent, even if it's consistently sucky. So at around 4 in the morning, I began typing, and it was incredibly slow going for a while, until I got to a new chapter, which exploded forth in a burst of (what I hope is) creativity. The issue here, for me, is that my main character's chapters are much harder for me to keep interesting, his being a regular person, while the chapters about angels are fun for me to write because I have no frame of reference, really, to have to be loyal to, and because, as angels, they are by their very nature sort of interesting creatures to think about. If this wasn't NaNoWriMo, I would probably think this over for weeks or months without writing anything at all, but instead, I just keep churning on.

3143 words typed tonight. And I could probably go on, but I'm pretty tired, and I hit the end of a chapter, which seems as good a point as any to leave off. And I'm officially back to the point I started, though with a story that, however imperfect, is much more clearly directed then it ever was before.

Work tomorrow, then more typing. Augh.


NaNoWriMo, Day 5 - 10358

I'll make this real quick. I have to be up in like 6 hours, and therefore I am foregoing writing entirely tonight. I have the day after tomorrow off, so I will make up for it then.

I think the important thing about goals is to understand why you have them. I write a poem every day not to have more poems, but to ensure that I am consistently working on my writing skills. But I am doing NaNoWriMo not necessarily to improve my writing ability (which of course, I hope is happening), because I think spreading the novel out over a longer period of time will help with a lot of that. Instead, I am doing this to get a novel written. To have that under my belt. So that I know, in the future, when I want to write a novel, that it's possible because I've done it.

And so if I skip days, I am not upset with myself, like I would be if I skipped writing my poetry.

Anyway, the reason I have to be up so early is that I will be reading a poem on Accents, 88.1 FM, Lexington Kentucky (http://wrfl.fm).

I'm stoked! So 0 words written today. Let's see what happens tomorrow.