Kim Neville

Woah, it’s halfway through November. Time for a NaNoWriMo Lite update. I’m currently 11,000 words into a first draft. Not nearly where I need to be to “win”. But a lot further ahead than I was at the end of October (i.e. nowhere). I figure if I keep going at this rate I can make it to 25,000 words by the end of the month. I think halfway to 50,000 is appropriate for an admittedly half-assed effort, don’t you?

Something I’ve noticed since beginning a new novel is that first drafting gets me into a bit of a trance. A cranky trance. I don’t much feel like doing stuff that’s not writing fiction (including blogging, which is why no post last week). And when I’m writing fiction I get annoyed at how not-awesome it is. Leaving me grumpy, well, most of the time.

With this first draft I’m forcing myself to keep moving forward. No going back to fix scenes that might end up getting cut. I did a lot of that with The Glass Doll. It made cutting stuff that much more painful. Now, the pain is in letting all the sucky stuff stay sucky — for now.

It’s getting better. Now that I have an idea of how much writing I can sanely manage in a week, I’m getting into a routine. Routines are good. They keep me calm. And as more story comes out and the characters begin to come to life I’m having moments of excitement. There are even bits of scenes that I sort of love.

Who knows? Maybe by December I will be my usual bubbly, non-cranky self again.

I hope you all had a fun Halloween. My four year-old fairy princess was less afraid this year although, like last year, we were the happy Halloween house. The only decor she would tolerate were smiling bats on paper hearts and dancing princesses with bedazzled skirts. I don’t mind. I love her sensitive little soul and I’m in no hurry for her to grow numb.

In keeping with the tone my daughter set for October, I’ve decided to be a lightweight in November. This month, I’m participating in NaNoWriMo — Lite!

For readers unfamiliar with National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo), every November thousands of writers endeavour to write a 50,000 novel. In a month. I did it two years ago, and if you’re curious you can read about how it worked out for me. In summary, I finished, but ultimately deleted about 90% of what I’d written.

I kind of thought I’d never do it again. I probably said as much in one of the links above.

However. After several weeks of dreamstorming, I’ve got a decent road map for my next novel. (That process worked out well for me, by the way. Read about it here if you’re curious.) I’ve got one hundred possible scenes to work with, vivid sensory details to get each one started and a strong sense of the voice of my main character. Which is a LOT more than I had the first time I did NaNoWriMo. Seems like a good time to start a first draft.

I’m not worried about whether or not I get to 50K. Been there, done that. I’m glad I had the experience but I’ve spent the last two years creating a sense of balance in my life. I like sleep, yoga classes and seeing my family.

I’ve got two goals for this November. The first is to write as much as I can while maintaining the balance. I will write every day. I will also keep sane while doing so.

The second goal is to make sure I don’t start putting word count before story. I’m okay with sloppy first drafts as long as the story’s moving forward. If I start spinning my tires, producing words that go nowhere (which is what happened last time), I’ll step away from the keyboard.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s still a couple of hours until bedtime. I’m off to write.