Week one of NaNoWriMo has come to an end. I have managed to survive, thus far, on a healthy diet of coffee, tea, smoothies, Nightwish, and Led Zeppelin. I am also happy to report that, for the most part, my sanity is intact.
Has it been sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns? Oh, how shall I put this? Ah. I've got it: Hell No. My first NaNo got off to a very rocky start. Once I was finally able to sit down at my computer everything seemed to be falling apart. My outlines weren't working, and what I thought were chapters were actually just scenes- and a lot of my initial beginning was completely scrapped. I was woefully behind the word count goals I had set for myself, I was even behind the standard 1,667 words a day goal. Then the frustration and stress set in, and I fet very close to an emotional breakdown. In fact, I looked something like this:
It was not a pretty sight.
I related all of my woes to my mentor on the NaNo forums. All I have to say is thank goodness for Holly. Right off the bat she was like: You are taking this way too seriously. She was absolutely right, I was. My inner perfectionist was coming out and and was trying to murder me in a slow and painful manner. Then she told me not to even think of this as a first draft, but a zero draft. Then it all suddenly clicked. I pulled what I had written thus far from my yWriter program and slapped it onto Open Office, and just wrote.
I'll be perfectly honest, it's not pretty. In fact I'd even go as far to say that it's pretty damn hideous (hello oxymoron!). But, I'm getting it all out of my system and that's what counts. Slowly my word count started going up and up. I was able to do anywhere from 2,000 to nearly 4,000 words in a day. By the time Thursday the 8th came around I was sitting on just over 16,000 words. In a week I had reached the point where I could say with confidence that I was a third of the way there.
Then came Friday.
Yesterday was just not a good writing day. In fact most of the day I sat at my computer looking quite like this:
Rest assured, I didn't plant any corn yesterday. I swear.
I was only able to get my word count up to 16,585. 500+ words. That was it. Why was only able to pull this meager amount of words out of my mind? Hang on! Hang on! I know the answer to this!
I hate my characters. I hate this story. I've threatened it with death by knife, gun, and flamethrower several times.
I know what you're thinking, hate is such a strong word. Yes, it is. It is also quite possible that I'm exaggerating just a little. However, the fact still remains that I have no emotional attachment to this story what so ever. Truth be told, this makes me a sad panda. I know that these characters, that this story, have the potential to be something. As it stands right now, they most definitely are not. I've been telling myself over and over that this is a zero draft. Actually. Scratch that, this is a -5 draft. All of the problems that this story has (inconsistency and plot holes, I'm looking at you bitches) can be fixed. I've just got to keep going Jason Voorhees on my inner editor, that pesky bugger, in the mean time.
Luckily, though, I've had some epiphanies about a few of my characters that has me very excited. Also, due to my emotional estrangement, I know who I'm going to kill off. Is it wrong of me to be excited about that? Oh well, I am and I have no shame about it. Yes, my inner voice has been singing "I know who's gonna get it!" since yesterday.
It's true. I don't.
So, that has been my writing week in a nutshell of crazy. I should expect next week to be much the same- you have been warned.
I cannot tell you, though, how happy I am to have a little reprieve from writing like a maniac. It's so nice to be able to sit down at my computer and spend a ridiculous amount of time on Pinterest, Facebook, Tumblr, and YouTube without having my inner voice telling me to get to work. After all, all work and no play makes Aimee a dull girl. I'll most likely get back to the grind tonight or in the morning. It's worth it, though. Totally worth the insanity.
Aimee
x
