Saturday, November 15, 2008

Halfway Through NaNo = Halfway Crazy

Okay, so it's November 15. I should be at 25,000 words in NaNo. I have no idea if I'm that close. See, I've been writing in a notebook for this book. I have about 30 pages of untyped writing, so I don't know if I'm at 25 K or not. I've logged in on NaNo at 15,357 and I think my 30 pages will get me above the halfway mark. As soon as I type it up...

Writing in a notebook is a new tactic I'm trying to see if my first drafts can be a little less scattered thus requiring a little less editing and revising down the road. Will it work? I have no idea. But I have noticed a couple of benefits already.

1) I've been liberated from the computer. I don't feel the obsessive need to be on the Internet every second of every day. I don't have to check my writing forums every thirty seconds. I don't have to post a comment on every thread. The computer battery is thanking me.

2) I write slower than I type, obviously. My brain is racing, but my mind (are those two things the same? Hmm...I think not) is contemplating the best word choice, a stronger verb than "ran," and a whole slew of other things. I'm *hoping* this will make my first draft better.

3) When I go to type up what I've written, I edit a little bit as I go. I'm hoping this reduce the amount of OCD-ing later. Who am I kidding? I'm still gonna obsess over every single word on the page. Especially when a request comes in. Oh well. I'm enjoying the whole writing by hand thing, so it's worth it just for that.

4) I may be halfway crazy for participating in NaNo and writing by hand and then typing. I think I should be able to log twice as many words. I mean, I'm writing it twice, right? Can I get a Woot! Woot! (woot! woot!)

Either way, it's the halfway mark for NaNo. And I am definitely more than halfway crazy trying to get caught up.

2 comments:

Jenn said...

I was gonna say - you're only HALFWAY crazy??? LOL.

I can only claim about 13K words right now. I /have/ been spending a lot of time weaving these words into previously-written material, so it's a little more difficult that way.

On the other hand, it is easier in a way - I already know my characters really well, and I've already really fleshed the whole thing out in the past.

But now, I'm sailing a little smoother. I'm into a part of the book that I don't have a lot of previously-written scenes for, so I'm building my word count up a lot faster than I was in the beginning.

Fast enough to write 37K words in the next 1/2 month? It's anyone's guess. But I'm gonna try!

The fact that you're hand-writing everything AND THEN typing it in makes me feel like a wuss for not keeping up.

Oh, yeah, and WOOT WOOT!!!

Carolyn Kaufman | @CMKaufman said...

WOOT WOOT WOOT WOOT!

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