My house hasn’t been cleaned in three weeks and it’s been just as long since I’ve gotten any real exercise.
Oh, yes, and I am one of those people whom in previous years I have hated: I have 54,505 words today and the book still isn’t done. I’m just going to keep writing until it is.
Then comes the hard part: the editing.
Total Words Written So Far 33,755
Total Hours Spent Writing 33.25
Avg Words Written Per Day 2,596
Avg Hours Writing Per Day 2.56
Avg Words Per Hour 1,015
Avg Morale Per Day 5
Number of Words Remaining 16,245
Number of Days Remaining 17
Number of Hours Remaining 16.00
So why do I still feel like I don’t know where I’m going? Ah, the joys of NaNoWriMo.
NaNoWriMo follows a pretty set pattern for me: the first few days I feel like a complete and utter hack.
What hubris to think I can write a novel (even though I’ve done it before…three times)! And how dare I think I have anything interesting to say or that my prose might be even vaguely entertaining (when I know for certain that NaNo is supposed to 1) produce a first draft, and 2) everyone’s first draft is kinda shitty).
The kind folks at the Office of Letters and Light, NaNoWriMo’s parent organization, realize that most authors go through a similar cycle so they line up a pep talk a week for us. It makes me feel a bit better that this year’s week one pep talk is from an author whose work I admire, Jasper Fforde.
Because here’s the thing: Writing is not something you can do or you can’t. It’s not something that ‘other people do’ or ‘for smart people only’ or even ‘for people who finished school and went to University’. Nonsense. Anyone can do it. But no-one can do it straight off the bat. Like plastering, brain surgery or assembling truck engines, you have to do a bit of training—get your hands dirty—and make some mistakes. Those 22 days of mine were the start, and only the start, of my training. The next four weeks and 50,000 words will be the start of your training, too.
There’s a lot to learn, and you won’t have figured it all in 50,000 words, but it’ll be enough for you to know that you don’t know it all, and that it will come, given time. You’ll have written enough to see an improvement, and to start to have an idea over what works and what doesn’t. Writing is a subtle art that is reached mostly by self-discovery and experimentation. A manual on knitting can tell you what to do, but you won’t be able to make anything until you get your hands on some wool and some needles and put in some finger time. Writing needs to be practiced; there is a limit to how much can be gleaned from a teacher or a manual. The true essence of writing is out there, in the world, and inside, within yourself. To write, you have to give.
What do you give? Everything. Your reader is human, like you, and human experience in all its richness is something that we all share. Readers are interested in the way a writer sees things; the unique world-view that makes you the person you are, and makes your novel interesting. Ever met an odd person? Sure. Ever had a weird job? Of course. Ever been to a strange place? Definitely. Ever been frightened, sad, happy, or frustrated? You betcha. These are your nuts and bolts, the constructor set of your novel. All you need to learn is how to put it all together. How to wield the spanners.
And this is why 30 days and 50,000 words is so important. Don’t look at this early stage for every sentence to be perfect—that will come. Don’t expect every description to be spot-on. That will come too. This is an opportunity to experiment. It’s your giant blotter. An empty slate, ready to be filled. It’s an opportunity to try out dialogue, to create situations, to describe a summer’s evening. You’ll read it back to yourself and you’ll see what works, you’ll see what doesn’t. But this is a building site, and it’s not meant to be pretty, tidy, or even safe. Building sites rarely are. But every great building began as one.
So, even though I’m ahead on word count, there’s still 2,000 more words out there for me today.
See…when I do this NaNoWriMo thing, I usually have an idea of where I’m going but don’t always know how I’m going to get there. This morning I figured out how I was going to get there.
Normally October is a great month for me. The weather in DC is crisp, the air has enough of a chill to it to make that leather jacket I couldn’t even contemplate during summer seem appealing. The leaves are interesting colors, and the crockpot becomes a viable cooking device again. Normally.
This October has been unsettled at best and downright weird at worst. The weather has been all over the place – shirt sleeves one day, my winter coat two days later – and work has been so strange that today we passed the point at which I stop caring what happens and everything becomes ridiculous.
And yet…this year I’m writing a book. Yes, I’m “doing” NaNoWriMo.
To that end, I share the pep talk that went out today.
November 1: At midnight, local time, start writing your book. You need to log 1,667 words per day to stay on par. The website will be very slow for the first few days of the event, but with patience you can update your soaring word count in that box at the top of our site. Watch your stats graph fill. Send a link to your author profile to your friends so they can follow your progress. Revel in the majesty of your unfolding story. It’s November 1! You are an unstoppable novel-writing machine!
November 2: Stop writing. Wonder if you should start over. Keep going. Feel better.
November 8: As the first full week of writing comes to a close, you will be at 11,666 words. This is more fiction than most people write in their lifetimes, and you did it in a week. Go, you! This is also Municipal Liaison Appreciation Day, a raucous international holiday that celebrates NaNoWriMo’s volunteer chapter-heads (the folks who organized the write-in you went to last week). Chocolate, flowers, and gifts of expensive electronics are appreciated.
November 13: Nothing really happens on November 13.
November 15: After the second week of writing, you will be at 25,000 words. This is the approximate length of such legendary works of fiction as The Metamorphosis, Of Mice and Men, and Twilight: The Complete Illustrated Movie Companion. You’re halfway to winning! Attend a Midway Party in your town.
November 16: The second half of NaNoWriMo dawns. Writerly confidence builds. Your book comes to life, and characters start doing interesting, unexpected things. Nice. Weird.
November 22: After the third full week of writing, you stand at 35,000 words, the NaNoWriMo milestone universally recognized as The Place Where Everything Gets Much Easier. This is also when you fly out to San Francisco and join us for the Night of Writing Dangerously Write-a-thon, where you’ll help us set records for group noveling and candy consumption.
November 25: Novel validation and winning begins, and Word-Count Progress Bars turn from blue (under 50K) to green (over 50K) to purple (over 50k and a verified winner!). Check our FAQs for details on uploading your manuscript and winning. A limited number of 2009 Winner T-shirts will appear in the store. These will make you smile, and will feature a squirrel.
November 26: American Wrimos celebrate the true meaning of Thanksgiving by gathering together with friends and family, wolfing down a huge meal as quickly as possible, and then ditching those friends and family to hide in the bathroom with a laptop.
November 30: By midnight, local time, we will all be the proud owners of 50,000-word novels that we barely could have imagined on October 31. Plan to attend your local NaNoWriMo Thank God It’s Over Party, where grins will abound, champagne will flow, fives will be highed, and wrists will be iced.
You did it. We all did it.
December 1: Sleep will fall heavily across NaNoLand, as 150,000 writers close the book on a crazy, oversized dream.
December 2: The “I Wrote A Novel, Now What?” page goes up on the NaNoWriMo site, containing some special items for our winners from sponsors CreateSpace and Scrivener, along with advice on revision and next steps from published NaNoWriMo authors.
December 3: Rewrites begin.
It all starts very soon, brave writer! Here’s to a great month together!
So, fair warning: my blog posts will be even more sporadic than they have been of late but know it is for a good cause.