I was able to gain some momentum on my NaNoWriMo project and write 1,175 words last night. That gives me 10, 975 words so far. Yay, I hit 10,000! I probably could have wrote even more last night, but I didn’t want to be exhausted at work today.
I am already seeing many positives from participating in NaNoWriMo this year. For one, I have written a ton more dialog than I ever have before and I think this is helping me write more believable dialog. Secondly, I now have a strategy for writing every day. This obliterates my excuse that I don’t have time to write. This is a very good thing. Finally, in the past I have stuck to writing short stories. NaNoWriMo has forced me to work on a larger project, and I think the learning process will be invaluable.
Anyone else participating in NaNoWriMo experiencing any positives? Or, is NaNoWriMo totaly ruining your writing?
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Keep up the good work.
I came close to trying it. I am so glad that I didn’t. This has been a really crazy month with colds and work. I’m thinking about maybe trying to do my own month sometime a little less busy next year. Maybe April.
There have been some minor negatives, of course. The experience has made me more critical of some types of writing, less tolerant of wordiness in certain writers, for example. And it has made me deeply jealous of certain writers, too. I’m reading Mickey Spillane right now and finding myself in awe of how quickly he can move a story along.
Also, sometimes I look at the hard copy I have printed out (as a back-up) and dread the revision process to come. When I started my dissertation, a biographical treatment of the late Senator Paul Tsongas, my first draft of the first chapter was 145 pages long. Editing this down to a manageable size was torture, and took forever.
But overall, I think I am learning so much every day that it has been well worth it. I write for a living, and have for five or six years now, various types of nonfiction. And I have never before learned as much about the craft as I have in the last two weeks. I keep feeling like I am on the verge of learning something even more pivotal about how to write novels, how to construct plot and to construct better characters. Those skills still elude me, but I keep hoping for a breakthrough.
And I have already written some notes on the novel I intend to write this coming spring. It’s a good thing I have, too, because I am beginning to get addicted to this type of writing.
I’m enjoying the process tremendously. My husband has been very supportive of me writing. I’ve started using more dialog and it’s forcing me to really thinking about writing.
On the flipside I find that I have force myself to be more wordy, so I feel my writing is less tight. I dread the revision process, but when it gets done it’s going into cold storage for at least six weeks to get myself out of their world.
Also, have I mentioned that I’ve let the cleaning slip? Yeah, that’s a negative and will have to be addressed soon.
Positives: not worrying so much about detail…I have a bad habit of getting hung up on descriptions.
Negatives: too many Kraft macaroni and cheese-type meals.
Congrats on breaking the 10,000 barrier!
CONGRATULATIONS!!!