Day 7

It’s been seven days of NaNo. This is exhausting, but I’m able to actually keep up the pace. How? I’ve got a lot of support behind me this time. People alongside me, working their butts off and being inspiring, people supporting me and letting me bounce ideas off of them. It’s making writing feel like more of a community event than it’s ever been.

But the truth is, writing is one of the most singular things you can do. Sure you can brainstorm, share, workshop, but in the end it’s your words. You choose what to cut and keep, what ideas get carried out, what you want to give to the reader. And that’s scary.

I’m becoming increasingly worried I’m producing lower and lower quality stuff. I know, in some ways, that’s the point, and I’m hoping to come to a break point where I finally clear out all the nonsense and start mining gold. Does that seem reasonable? Does that ever happen to anybody?

I hit 11,678 words a moment ago, and I’m both elated and disappointed. I wanted to be further along, but I’m so much further than I thought I could be. I’m worried I made a mistake working on Vacancy which is already a mish mosh of things, a million tiny stories to be tacked together. I didn’t do enough prep, I need to straighten these characters out a bit more, but on the other hand I love actually bringing them to life. I had them in my head for so long, I’m happy to evict them. I guess I just need to accept that these pieces are going to need a LOT of rewriting.

If nothing else, I’ve reminded myself that I love writing. Even though this makes me groan, and tired, and cranky, I’m ultimately much happier for it all. I’m discouraged to have produced crap, but I’m hoping it’s like working out. Yeah, I can only life five pounds and run for about three seconds, but after practicing and pushing myself, I’ll get better. that’s the secret right???