Week Two of Nanowrimo is supposed to be the Mighty Mountain of Doom. It is the hump, the long slog, the place where plots go to die. Where the trail is littered with the desicated carcasses of Wrimos who, upon discovering they lack the necessary fortitude, lay down to die.
I thought I had dodged that particular bullet. Walking into the write-in tonight I blithely announced that my story was going great! The rest of my life was going to hell, what with the laundry and the dirty dishes and library books that have to be finished before I return them and the pot of inedible soup I made this weekend and the small electrical fire and needing time to write this blog post and an employer selfishly wanting me to work on their projects rather then my own, but the story was just fine. I grabbed some junk food, sat down, opened my notebook, and….
I got nothing.
Well, that can happen, so to jumpstart myself I began looking at yesterday’s writing to see where I had left off. And then I looked a little further back. And back a little more. And came to the horrifying realization that all I have written in the last four days is a couple of decent scenes glued together with a lot of brainstorming as I looked for a way out of this plot hole — excuse me, plot Grand Canyon.
It’s a lot of words, but these are not good words. Mind, they count for Nanowrimo! They all add to word count! But they don’t advance the story.
A farbled along for a few pages tonight, enough to meet my goal for the day, and with a heavy heart left the write-in pretty early. As I was walking home, I suddenly realized that these two characters are going to meet and exchange critical information because one is going to look up the other in the phone book. I had been brainstorming about psychics and hacking into the drivers license database and hiring a private detective, and all I need is a phone book? Seriously?
So yeah. Week Two. Week Two has no mercy, and really nasty sense of humor.
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