If you're brave enough to fly

I expect that you’re all heartily tired of me posting about Nanowrimo by now.  If so, feel free to skip this post.

I’ve been thinking a lot about writing in general as well about Nanowrimo.  And I think that the issues I’ve been having with Nano have nothing to do with Nano at all.

I truly do enjoy doing Nano.  I like being part of a group all striving towards the same goal.  I like the competition.  I like being “given” the freedom to just churn out words without editing, to be able to explore new words without overthinking everything.  I think Nano is an awesome thing, and I admire everyone who has a go at it, whether they make 50k or not.  You’re all awesome, whether you’re an established writer who’s churning out a draft or if you just want to play in the word mines for the first time and see if you *can* do it.

In retrospect, Nano couldn’t have come at a worse time for me.  Not only do I have baby brain and late-pregnancy exhaustion, I’ve also had workmen in the house for most of this week.  Plus I only finished a draft of another novel last week – something that always requires some time in between just refilling the well before I can tackle another big project.

So.  The plan is to take a step back into another mode of writing.  To refill the well by reading a lot, to do some planning and outlining of Never (I’m seriously contemplating writing a full outline and synopsis this time, just because it’s something that I haven’t done before and I’m curious to see if the process works for me).  I may still do some writing, and I will very possibly do a good deal of posting about writing process.  I just want to take it as it comes for a little while and stop stressing myself out about it all.

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.

Nanowrimo progress: 5521 / 50,000 words

Good writing day today, thanks mostly to being stuck in the house for most of the day supervising ceiling repairs.  Said repairs are making me very happy to see them getting done.  Having the ceiling cave in isn’t high on my list of things to live through.

I also received my copy of Booklife today, and have dipped into its pages already.  I’ll likely post about it in detail at some stage, but I’m really enjoying it so far.  I’m a fan in general of reading books about writing (and listening to podcasts about writing and reading blogs about writing…and you get the point).  I like saturating my life with books and with Story.  As we all know, writing is a solitary occupation most of the time, and reading about other people’s experiences makes it feel less solitary.

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.

Nanowrimo officially started today (and half of you reading this reply with a resounding “duh”).

I’m still not really sure if I’m going to shoot for the 50k “win” or not, but as things stand, I’m going to have a play around with Never and see how the brainmeats comply.  So I guess you could say that I’m doing Nanowrimo, if only in a half-arsed manner

Plus it gives me a good reason to justify owning the new MacBook and to play around with Scrivener.  And if I do make the 50k, then I get to buy Scrivener at 50% off.  Bonus.  I’ll be stuck inside the house for a good chunk of this week anyway, since we have guys coming out to fix the ceilings, so I might as well be doing something useful.

Have I talked myself into it yet?

And that said, I haven’t done any actual writing today.  Nor do I probably plan on doing a lot of writing on weekends.  I like having my weekend break.  I have, however, played with Scrivener, finished setting up the MacBook properly, and put together a few templates of things like character sheets.

Now I just need to start doing the actual work.  I’m not planning on outlining or doing any more prep work than writing up said character sheets.  At this stage, I’m exploring a new world, which I always do best by pantsing.

And on a semi-related note, damn it’s nice to have an actual light and portable laptop again.  I am most pleased with the decision to go Mac (though I’ll never replace my PC as a desktop machine), even though it’s going to take me a little time to adjust to everything.

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.