NaNo - Day 7 - quick update

[meridian_rose]

NaNo - Day 7 - quick update


Unless I manage a few more words tonight my current total is 11,498, just shy of the recommended day 7 total (11,669). I expected to 'hit the wall' at about day 12 but I'm already starting to worry that I'm running out of planned scenes to write - even though I haven't actually written all the scenes I have notes for. And some scenes I have planned are "x happens but idek any details" - eg is the peril a flood or a landslide, and how does that fit in with the rest of the plot and character skills, and don't I need to foreshadow that it's a possibility beforehand...
I'm worried about the timeline and how all these disparate scenes can ever be made into a coherent narrative. I have/had plans to use the Tarot Major Arcana (which rather mirrors the Hero's Journey) to decide chapters and flow, but the event I want to use for The Devil might need to occur earlier in the novel; and there's a seasonal aspect to the timeline too, which affects where that event takes place. It's a mess. I suppose as it is a fantasy I can adjust seasons and weather to my liking but I don't want to make more work/more confusion for myself by extending summer just so the solstice occurs when I want it to!

Ugh, this sucks:
None of the scenes are coming out exactly as I want. Writing, How Does It Work. I know I'm capable of elegant prose but I'm not seeing any evidence of it here.
I know there are a billion spelling errors caused by clumsy typing in my haste. Okay, those are fixable and I'll make more errors on editing so it makes sense not to waste time and energy on that.
I'm relying, as usual, on dialogue. I know I underwrite rather than overwrite; I always have to go back and put in more detail, more descriptions of places and actions, more sensory detail. Still, I'm worried that I'm writing a lot of random dialogue rather than well drawn scenes.

But:
I've written over 11k in a week. I can't recall the last time I wrote that many words in so few days let alone on one single project.
I always feel like this, I think. Because I hate planning every detail I always end up fighting with the timeline. Because I am not a linear writer I am always having to figure out how to join up the start, end, and those random things in the middle. It's just a much bigger job with a novel than a fic.
Also Juliet started as a handwritten novella that was very badly typed up and then rewritten, and edited, and edited, and its in beta now. So I know I can polish something up. (On the other hand Juliet is years old now and I worry about ever publishing it, and what does that mean for this novel?)

So I'm somewhat swings and roundabouts with it right now. I'm accomplishing something. I'm not just sure what, yet.

Comments

[silk_dragon_zen]

Unless they've changed the rules, from what my sister has told me about the times she's done Nanowrimo, not only doesn't the novel have to have been copyedited, but the novel doesn't even have to have all its plot holes sewn up. All that's needed for the month is the word count and that it be all new material. So perhaps some of this stuff could be sorted after the month is over. That is, unless sorting it is necessary to the creative process.

[meridian_rose]

You're right :) That's one of the crictisicms of NaNoWriMo, that it is about wordcount and 50k does not make a novel! But the counter argument is that it's really about forming a writing habit, and that the benefits of community support and focus on writing rather than editing outweigh the negatives. Get a rough first draft out and polish it later, rather than write half a novel that's polished but never gets finished.
Some of the sorting needs to be done at some point for the narrative to come together, while other things can wait until much later. It's deciding which is which that is the issue :)

[silk_dragon_zen]

Ah, that makes sense. Never having done it, I hadn't considered some of those things, though my sister has emphasized the aspect of forming a writing habit — a bit like forming a practice habit while learning to play a musical instrument, or forming a daily meditation practice for spiritual development.

[lynne-monstr.livejournal.com]

From where I'm sitting it sounds pretty impressive! I've always found it's easier to edit down the line as long as there is at least something on the page to work with. There's nothing more disheartening than a blank doc.

Good luck fleshing out the rest of it. It sounds like you've got an amazing start!

[meridian_rose]

Thank you :) I know that's one of the main things about NaNo, forcing you to get down a finished novel to edit - rather having an unfinished but polished piece as I'm wont to do. I'm just often pessimistic about progress. I'll try and catch up on my wordcount today :)