NaNo fever

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, NaNo for short, is kind of a strange experience, I'm finding. Some days I put off writing until mid- or late afternoon. This morning I got out of bed at 4:22, after having lain awake for at least an hour, and went right to the computer to work on the draft. Sometimes it feels like a heavy obligation; other times it's Wheeee!

My draft sucks. There is no kind way to say it. It's really, really bad. But I just keep going. I've had interruptions, so I've not got the word count I'd like, but I'm chugging along.

My dialogue is terrible. The amount of exposition and blah-blah-blah I have is terrible. The plot--what plot? I know I have inconsistencies, and I need to work on the timeline once this draft is finished. I have to keep shutting up my inner editor, who constantly interrupts the flow (such as it is).

The thing is that I've never been able to write the way some writers do, using notes and an outline and sketching out major scenes and the like. I have to sit down and write and see what comes out. Thus I generate a zillion words that must be tossed out when I revise. But I haven't ever been able to do it any other way. As I write, I'm usually surprised, and sometimes shocked, by what my characters do and say, and by the turn the narrative is taking. Often it's a wrong turn and I have to backtrack and find a different way, but sometimes it leads to something good, or at least passable. It's only through this method of letting things happen and letting my characters unfold in the writing that I can get anything at all. If I'm lucky, a murky plot line eventually emerges from the fog along with a couple of themes or motifs. I can't plan it out at all. I just have to generate a lot of waste and then pick through it to find the usable stuff.

I start out knowing little to nothing about my characters. It's only through writing them onto the page (or screen, to be accurate) that I find out about them. Sometimes I might know something like "She's fat and has suffered for it," or "He was definitely the high school jock back in the day," but that's about it. Usually I don't even know that much until I sit at the keyboard. Sometimes an image will start me out. Once in a while a character graciously introduces her- or himself to me and invites me to invent a vehicle for her/him.

So, adventures in NaNoLand. Onward and upward!

Comments

[cindy]

Here's what I wonder after reading this: once you are in the middle of your story, then does the "What happens next" start to occur to you before you hit the keyboard? How about those mornings laying in bed? Do you start thinking, "well, I left my character here, and I wonder if next she should go over there and do X..." I ask because this is my experience. Sometimes I'll be plotting in my head for an hour in bed before I hop out and think "I better get this on paper." And also, really? You never write in longhand? Always on the computer? For NaNo, I mostly hit the computer because of time issues, but I LOVE writing in longhand. Gives me time to dream in between sentences...