Not counting words, but I got some ideas down, corresponded with a friend about some related software, and tried to print but the setup’s not working. I had to write lesson plans and grade this morning. After exercise and dinner, I’ll get back to it.
I did about 1700 words in a little over two hours today. I decided to go with the story about the amateur genealogist who uncovers a dreadfully rotten branch in his family tree. The working title is Much Cry and No Wool.
My goal is to write for an hour a day until I finish my book, and I wrote for an hour today. It’s been ages since I’ve had a regular writing habit so it was painful to force myself to concentrate that long.
I did make progress and it impressed upon me how little I actually have left to do. Finishing the book by the end of the month is an absolutely do-able goal.
Good work, friends!
I spent a few hours organizing. I’m not starting entirely from scratch, so I went through my journal and played with pieces of text and started pulling out prompts I’d recorded earlier. I probably have about 6000 words to muck around with and use as stems. Today I mostly worked on poems, which isn’t going to pop that word count up very quickly! Nor do I really care about word count–journey, not destination, all of that.
I only wrote about 900 words and I’m not at all happy with what I wrote. So. This may prove to be challenging.
One thing I learned about myself since the last time I attempted this (which Facebook inconveniently reminded this morning was 4 years) was that I should write a scene when the inspiration hits. So I suspect I’ll be writing various bits out of order of the overall narrative and then stitch them together at the end. Hopefully that will be my saving grace.
That’s how I write. I just start with the juicy bits and then mash it all together later. I’ve tried to be a plotter, but no, I can’t do it. Every time I try to logically work a problem, I end up paralyzed. It has to “feel” right. The story reveals itself to me as I go.
I’m discovering this is really the way my mind works too. What I wrote will either be part of the last chapter, or a sort of prologue that the rest of the story will eventually loop back to, if that makes sense.
It has become clear to me that, even though I wrote a lot of short stories as a kid, and have dipped my toe in other forms of writing at various times in my life, I am very much not a novelist. I just don’t have what it takes.
This year I decided to (unofficially) participate by completing unfinished first drafts of screenplays I have laying around. If I work about an hour a day, I should definitely finish one, and hopefully two, and perhaps, before Nov ends, start on a third. That’s because first drafts don’t have to be good to be worth doing, they just have to be completed. And the three I plan to work on are 60-75% done anyway, so not actually all that much work to do on them to get them advanced enough to count as a first draft.
First step is to rewrite the treatments so I get back in the zone. 1600 words done on that already.
A friend of mine, who has written for decades, encouraged me this past summer to give my inner writer a chance. I have so much to learn! But I have done a very little writing, and have been rather amazed at the way the stories just seem to come gushing out by themselves. I don’t speak to their quality, but it’s quite a fun endeavor! The frustrations come later, I’m sure, as I try to hammer stubborn things into shape. I had signed up for NaNoWriMo, but I think the 50K words is a bit too daunting for this baby scribe. This year. We’ll see where I’m at next year. In the meantime, I’m ‘discovering’ new puzzle pieces of my idea for a novel every day. I haven’t yet brought myself to what seems to be the First Rule of Write Club: write every day.
Thanks.
The problem (for me) is that I’m a sort of braided narrative that will have to be un-braided near the end of the story, as one character needs to separate from the other and finish the story solo. The easiest way I can think to do that is to write the character that needs to drop from the story told in the first person. I’m not sure how to do that, though. I thought about killing him off but since he’s somewhat autobiographical, I’m not comfortable doing that.
But really, if I can hot 50k words, I think the rest will fall into place. With that much of the story on paper, editing may prove easier.
As usual, I suspect I’m simply overthinking this whole thing. No way through it except to do it.
Welcome! There used to be a Nanowrimo for scripts called Script Frenzy, but it eventually died off…joining to this event seems like a great idea.
I tried two years ago, but I picked an idea I’d had for a long time and things stopped up when I wasn’t happy with the quality of what I was producing. I’m going to try again this year, with the goal of powering through and producing 50k words that may or may not be good enough to revise to a real book. It’ll be urban fantasy-y. My title is Nano Rhino.
Another 2,000 words or so today. My brain hurts.
…But it’s a good kind of hurt, right?
Today I worked on organizing and filling in some poems. I wrote prompts so I can wake up and groggily write down ideas in the night, and also continued to pull out prompts for other pieces. I think I’ll try to go with a theme each week of November, then organize more and fill in in December.
Woohoo! With you on the brain hurting.
I did my hour. Parts of it were actually painful. Did I mention I have ADHD? When I get stuck on a scene, my brain immediately launches to other, more interesting subjects and I’ve got a browser window open before I know it.
But yes, I did my hour. And I made actual progress. It’s almost as if when I spend time writing, I get things written. 
Good work!
Nice work, everyone! And yes it’s a good hurt. 
So, as I mentioned, I’m writing screenplays rather than a novel, but before I get back into it properly I’ve been rewriting the “treatment” which is a ~ten page bullet pointed list of the story beats. I am using it to get me back in the zone, as well as improve what I’ve already written, ready for draft 2 once I get to that.
Anyway, I am 75% along with this treatment, 2500 words so far. Very happy, and excited to apply it to the script. Which is a good sign.
I might take US election day off, though. I think that’s fair, most other people will be somewhat preoccupied too.
I only did few hundred more words yesterday, and so I’m wondering if I should revise my goal a bit: do an hour a day, see how far that gets me.
I plan to work tonight anyway. I could use a good distraction.