Thursday, November 6, 2008

NaNo: Update the First

Just for the record, I've been plugging away at my novel. I should have more to post about it soon.

I haven't been able to log into the website in ages. Every time I try it's a horrendous slog as it struggles to connect to overloaded servers, I'm sure. So I gave up trying several days ago. I'd really only be there to keep in touch with my friends as we'd trade encouraging letters with one another, because it's not like I'd have anything to update.

Because, generally, out of the belief that it's somehow unlucky, I don't look at my word count. I even go so far as to disable the page count and to pick a random font size at the start of each day so I can't even guestimate based on the visual clues as to how far I've gotten. So I don't know exactly where I stand at the moment, but I have a feeling that I'm several thousand words behind. I've been taking my time, not worrying about trying to reach a daily word count and, instead, just trying to write well. Which is, for me, the goal this time around. I can pour out a lot of words but, now, I want to pour out some nice lines. It's a slow pace made even more slow by everything else that I have to get done.

But, I'm having fun with it. Not caring about a total or even quality, I can just sit down and type away for a few minutes or a few hours at a time. I don't think I'm writing particularly strong stuff, which is why no one will ever get to see what I have at the moment. But I think I'm getting better. More importantly, I think the process is making my other writing stronger. Faster and leaner as I fold in the lessons that I'm learning with my latest book.

I'm glad that I decided to make the effort this year since I almost didn't. As I suspected heading in, I don't have the time. As I feared, I really don't have any idea of what I'm doing. But, as I hoped, I'm having a blast going through the motions.

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