By HD Silversmith
Okay, I now feel as if I can do this. Which is to say, I do realize that it's possible for me to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. (Hush ... I never said it would be good, just that it would be possible.) Now I just have to do it (minor detail).
Last night I stayed up until midnight, simply to usher in NaNoWriMo and write my first sentence. Well, actually, I wrote what turned out to be my first 320 words -- and no, they weren't all one sentence (I have a history of writing really, really, really long sentences, particularly in my academic prose. I'm trying to work on that here. Long sentences don't cut it in an online context.)
This morning I got up early in order to put in a couple of hours to see where that would put me in terms of word count and my outline. As far as the former goes, I'm at 1,705 words. The official NaNoWriMo daily minimum? 1,667 words. So I'm good there. That's not a lot, and it doesn't feel like a lot to produce. That's a good thing because, frankly. I didn't know how any of this would feel until I actually started to do it.
I know that I need to remain focused and consistent and not compare myself to others. This is a zen exercise for me, and working in my own way, doing my own thing, at my own pace, is what I need to do. (Translation: looking at other people's word counts will give me an inferiority complex. However, looking at progress bars, without word counts, might be motivating. We'll see. Hey, you gotta manage your own psychology!)
As far as moving through my outline? Uh, well, kind of. I mean, I'm moving, but the characters aren't exactly behaving as I'd thought they would, and even the exposition is a bit mercurial.
I think that's par for the NaNoWriMo course, though, so I'm simply not going to worry about it. I. Will. Not. I refuse. For me, this is a major part of choosing to do NaNoWriMo in the first place: I simply need to Let Go and Write a first draft. Buh-bye, Inner Editor. Scram. Get thee to a nunnery. And so on.
It's only 9 a.m. here on the west coast of the U.S. so, even with a few errands and some work to do this evening, I'll be able to incorporate a second writing session today. I may drop in on a first-day write-in near me since I've met the initial daily quota; I didn't want to feel so stressed out about that that I'd resent any time spent investigating a write-in that might not work for me.
So ... we WriMos are off to the races, eh? How's your first day going?
