This post started as a response to
this blog post, but it got long so I thought I'd spare the strangers my navel gazing and inflict it on my friends instead.
This is my first year doing NaNo. It's something I've wanted to try for a while, and this year worked well, because my job wasn't going to get in the way. It has been an interesting exercise.
I think, on the whole, I'm more of a bricklayer. (Go read the blog post and that last sentence will make sense.) But, I tend to write in waves. I'll write a chunk one day, and then the next I'll go back over that, tweak it and then keep going. And the next day, I'll go back over all of it, tweak, etc. The downside is, I very rarely ever finish anything.
NaNo has been helpful in a lot of ways. It has forced me to put stuff down on paper, and has led to a better understanding of the plot, a better understanding of the characters. And I've written 27,000 words so far, which is probably the longest single thing I've ever done. At least half of it is garbage, but then, about half of it isn't, so that's something.
The problem I'm running into is, at its root, that I picked a story I care about. It has helped motivate me to keep going, but it has also made it very hard to silence my inner editor. I have a very hard time just spewing out wordage. After more than a decade of pecking at the idea, I now have 27,000 words towards it, and a much better idea of where it's going. But I have also hit the point where all I want to do is go back to the beginning and start to fix things. I really, really need to do that. But, I also really want to see NaNo through to the end. I could just keep going, get a rough shape for what's next, get more good ideas, but I also feel like I'm wandering further and further off the path. And the writing is therefore starting to feel like much more of a chore.
I haven't given up, yet. We'll see how it goes. Regardless, though, I feel like I now have enough of a base in the story to start writing it properly once NaNo is over.
impressed
contemplative
