Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Art and Writing

NaNoWriMo: The agony of knowing that you're writing crap.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

National Novel Writing Month is progressing. Eight days into it and I feel completely humbled and, happily, am losing my critical, snarky edge in cutting down the writing of others.

NaNoWriMo, the place to get your daily allowance of humble pie.

I have been discovering a few ways of working through this challenge, many of which are covered on Corrine's blog in her "NaNoWriMo Writing Tips" post. The list is excellent, although I confess I am not following #5, which involves using Microsoft Word.

Where am I at now? I hate all my characters. I wish they'd get interesting lives, forgetting that I am, of course, repsonsible for that. I realize I can't write dialogue or narrative or anything, actually. I want to kill them all off. I can't wait for December so that I can put this tragedy behind me. And I can't stop competing with Corrine for word count totals, though she is currently ahead of me.

Behind the scenes, NaNoWriMo can be very ugly.

I have discovered the truth in not writing in sequential order, though. The only way I've been able to make it through some tough spots is to write bizarre and strange scenes, later coming back when I am in a more level mood and filling in the transistions. I am writing completely blind, with no outline, pre-planned plot or character or story devices, all by the seat of my pants. That explains a lot of the mess I find myself in today in which a costumed character tries to give my hero a packet of children's stickers and asks him to meet him at the zoo plaza.

It's hard to pre-plan great story lines like that, I tell you.

Need some more tips for your NaNo project? Here's a site that helps you plot a mystery novel in the classic 12 chapter formula. If you're into formulas, that is.