How to go about adjusting expectations? I wasn't as able as I expected to freeze my life; in fact, my commitment recently increased, so setting aside space to write has been a Tetrisian time-management challenge. I've spent much of the last week falling asleep with my fingers dangling over the keyboard, waking up with streams of nonsense garble all over my computer screen. I've decided to play fair and delete those unconscious sentences, even if they contribute to my overall word counts, and am currently sitting just above 15,000 words.
So, the expectation-setting. 50,000 words, the ultimate goal and what would launch me into the upper pantheon of WriMos is more daunting than anticipated and trying to accomplish that will just produce more negatively impacting anxiety. I've pulled back to striving for 30,000 words, a more reasonable endgame with just eight days to go, and more exciting a trial for the upcoming holiday weekend.
My story has begun to take shape, too. It's flattening out into chapters and sections, the characters have purpose and conflict, and the vignettes tying the central plot together seem relevant and interesting to the themes of family, upbringing and identity I'm exploring with this novel. So bring on Turkey Day and I'll stuff myself full of words and motivation to push forward to my (revised) goal.
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Monday, October 31, 2011
Thirty days and nights of literary abandon
It's time for the annual wrote-your-heart-out extravaganza known as NaNoWriMo, a.k.a. National Novel Writing Month.
This is the first year I'm taking the plunge. 1600 words a day x 30 days = 50,000 words.
I am planning to bend the rules to suit me a little more. Bending as in, it doesn't have to be words towards the same novel. My goal is to just carve out time every single day this month for writing, specifically for a few different projects I've got cooking.
Join me, won't you?
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