Nanowrimo Update

Apologies for the hiatus! I have had an exceedingly busy couple of days that involved meetings, writing, more meetings, vast and mighty amounts of laundry, and building shelves with my BARE HANDS (from a kit set. I am very impressed with myself), and Life overwhelmed other, more interesting things. Back now, though. Nanowrimo took a bit of a beating over the last couple of days, too - oops. I have only just hit the 11,000-word mark today.

You may, like me, be feeling a slight waning of enthusiasm at the moment. Is it really worth it? Have you bitten off more than you can chew? Can you ever catch up?

Well, of course you have bitten off more than you can chew. That's the whole idea. I can tell you from experience, though, that the feeling of printing out your work at the end of the month is absolutely worth it. Printing it out makes it real. A concrete, physical thing exists that would not exist (and possibly never would have existed) if you hadn't spent November 2009 doing this crazy, glorious thing.

Of course, distractions start to emerge at this point, too.

"I'm so behind with my word count. I'll never catch up."

I'm behind too! And feeling wonderfully relaxed about it. That is what all-nighters are for. Book a couple in for later in the month - and be sure to plan for pizza and wine (or the like). If you have a friend who lives nearby and is doing Nanowrimo as well, do it together.

Don't worry if you are behind. That is absolutely fine. You will catch up. You will!

"Maybe I should be working on something else. I had this brilliant idea ..."

Ah, the siren call of the New and Shiny Idea. It seems like a much better idea than the one you pledged your undying (or rather, month-long) loyalty to last week. It is curvaceous and sparkly and glamorous and full of exciting, untapped potential. I understand. I am willing to nod and smile sympathetically as you tell me what a wonderful idea this is. And then I am going to tell you to write the idea down in a notebook and tackle it some other time, when you have finished the Nanowrimo book that you started. Your job is to finish this draft and develop this idea, not to express every thought and idea you have ever had. Or ever will have. Trust me. Love the one you're with.

I probably wouldn't give you the same advice quite so quickly if you weren't doing Nanowrimo - but, even when writing novels is your job, these seductive little critters come along and try to distract you. Yes, sometimes your work-in-progress is going nowhere and never will and you should abandon it. But this is so rare. And it's dangerous to give into this feeling in the first draft, I think, because it's easy to misinterpret 'this is difficult' as 'this is not worth pursuing.'

"Wait, I've just figured out this important plot point. I should go back and change everything that I have written so that it fits in with the change."

No.

"But ..."

No.

"But I need to ..."

You can do it later. Finish the damn book. FINISH THE DAMN BOOK. Write those four works on a post-it and stick it to your screen. This is your mantra. When November is over you can spend all the time you like fiddling about with your plot and characters and semi-colons. Right now, all you need to do is write that idea down in a notebook with a big sign saying 'DO THIS LATER,' and carry on.

"Andrea, you're mean."

Yes. Yes I am.

Good luck, everyone! I am a bit behind on responding to comments, and I still haven't caught up with everyone's Polyvore creations. I'm looking forward to doing that tomorrow, though, and featuring some of them on the blog.