Our NaNoWriMo veteran, Lisa, said she had been spinning her wheels over how to begin her new story, but then she "embraced the badness" of what she was writing and settled for a beginning, that might not even make it into the book eventually. "But who cares really," she said. "It's moving forward!" I'm so glad she's got the experience and wisdom that we can turn to, as we go through this challenge. She's proven time and time again that with perseverance, even a seemingly-crazy goal like this can be accomplished!
Michelle is using the challenge to continue her book about the little girl whose father owns a boarding house in the 1930s. She's written about 34 pages of it already, so she's got a good head start on it. Because of her fibromyalgia, Michelle can't write for long periods of time - if she sits in one place for too long, her pain and fatigue settle deep into her body, and if she holds a pen or types for too long, her hands cramp. I suggested that she subtract the 34 pages she already has from the estimated NaNoWriMo word goal of 50,000 words, or approximately 185 - 200 pages. That would give her about 150 pages to write by the end of the month, which works out to about 4 1/2 pages instead of 6 - 6 1/2 pages. I think that as long as she can do her writing time in short spurts, with a lot of rest in between, she'll be able to do it. Her health comes first, but despite her disability, she's still a very creative person and has been very prolific with her writing. And I admire her for that a lot!
Janine said she wrote about 1,600 words in about two hours. She had started her novel before we decided to take the challenge, too, so she's already about 1,500 words into it. She also is blogging about her experience with "March Madness." In her first post, she compared it to Spring Training, for a sport like soccer or marathon running. I like that analogy - even though I've never been into sports, writing does take the same kind of dedication. And it requires practice for mental and creative fitness, much like sports require practice for physical fitness. In yesterday's post, she admitted to going online to look things up and listen to music when she found herself hitting a wall - many times it does affect her story, so she counts it as "research." I can relate to this so much! I always find myself hitting the internet whenever I hit a writing wall, and sometimes I can find exactly the information I need so I can keep writing instead of getting stuck. But sometimes I end up doing more "research" than actual writing. So I have to learn to balance it all! I told Janine that I'm glad to know someone who seems to have the same kind of writing "techniques" as I have! I'm looking forward to reading more of Janine's posts - her blog is "Mindful Wanderings" and it's on LiveJournal, at www.lucas7261.livejournal.com.
As for me, I stayed up until 2:20 am, working on the beginning of disAPPEAR, and I wrote 1,612 words. I had already written a prologue some time ago, but I re-worked it so that much of it is new. I'm still trying to break my habit of re-writing as I write - I found myself rambling, and then going back and editing myself, just to make the passages clearer. I can't help myself - it's a compulsion! But I did keep going, so that's good. And if I can keep moving my writing forward, and keep my self-editing to a minimum, that might be the best way I can finish my project.
Today, I continued from where I left off, but I didn't get too far yet. There are still some things I'm working out in my mind about the story. So I'm going to mull it over while I'm at work tonight, and then I'll hit the keyboard when I get home. Another night of burning the midnight oil. But with my mostly-nights work schedule, this seems to work best for me, so far.
So, that's the report for Day 1 - I'm so glad to see that we all had a successful first day!
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