Oy vey! What’s that I see? Zounds! ‘Tis no weekly WILAWriTWe I spy in the above title, but instead a literary usurper of mind-blowing proportions! Odds bodkins!
That’s right, dearest inklings. November is the month of column hijacking, and even WILAWriTWe is not immune. Today and for my next three tricks posts, you’ll be getting a peek into Wrimoly goings-on. Sometimes, it will be glorious. Sometimes, it won’t be so pretty. But I promise that, as always, it will be the truth.
Together with Aaron, Becca, Jessie, Sean, and JT, I kicked off NaNoWriMo 2010 with a midnight write-a-thon at my place. We met at 23:00 (that’s 11pm for those of you who don’t think like Europeans) on October 31st, hob-nobbed, chit-chatted, and what-notted for an hour — then got down to the Most Serious Business of penning our first November lines as soon as 0:00:01, November 1st, rolled around. Although in my case, I must admit it was more like 0:02:47.
But nearly three days later and in spite of losing two minutes and forty-seven seconds of writing time, I am well on track and finding out — yet again! — that pre-writing is my most bestest of BFFs. I’ve already hit a couple of paragraphs that made me go “er?” A few lines of dialogue have left me feeling like I had no clue what the conversation was about — or, worse, how it should end. And my main character has fallen into the deep end without knowing much beyond a dog-paddle, so she’s no help at all.
But. Today, I finished Chapter Two. I have four scenes to my novel’s name. (Though so far, it doesn’t have a name. Poor thing.) I’ve told what happened before Chapter 1 without resorting to The Dreaded Flashback. I needed 5,000 words by the end of today, and my current word count is 7,118. Sha-ZAM.
And it’s all thanks to pre-writing. The character descriptions have helped me remember how MC should be reacting, thinking, and acting. The mock Table of Contents reminds me what each chapter should be about. The long synopsis keeps me aiming for the next goal when I feel like I don’t know where the dialogue or prose should go next.
Oh, not to mention Aaron’s got this cramazing spreadsheet in Google docs where we’re all entering our word counts and tracking each other’s progress. It can be either a depressing dose of reality — or a refreshing draught of encouragement and challenge to keep plugging along. It’s our choice how to react to it. I choose to let it kick me in the rear when that rear is not in writing gear. 😉
Bring on the month, November! I got yer word count right here.
Court,
Your posts always crack me up. Your writing style is so witty and conversational. The only problem is I want to comment mid-paragraph, and alas, this is not Wave.
Things like, I had no idea “wrimoly” was a word and how exactly does one “hob” a “nob?” and how did I manage to participate without knowing the answer?
As always, you entertain. Rock on the NaNoWriMo. Sham-on and Sha-Zam.
LOL Never fear, Becca — your own wittiness is quite entertaining as well! And ooh! A blog with mid-paragraph, Wave-like commenting options…hmmmm…
If it’s any consolation, neither did I know “Wrimoly” was a word until I’d written it. I giggle at the fact that we shorten NaNoWriMo to “WriMos” and use it to refer to writers, when it really means “Writing Months,” and a writer clearly cannot be a month. So I guess my coffee-infused brain decided that “Wrimoly” would be a great way to communicate “in a NaNoWriMo-like manner,” even though it really only means “Writing-Monthly-like.”
Um. Please to be forgiving the confusion of the previous paragraph.
And you hob a nob like a pro, dearie, ignorance notwithstanding. 😉