Welcome to the dawn of day four (of NaNoWriMo), and a new liveblogger! (Not new. You know me. I’ve been here forever.) Since you haven’t met my novel yet, let me start you off there:
There are a lot of things to say about the challenges of writing a story set in 1914 in a city I’ve never visited, but I think we’ll come to that next week. This week, let’s talk about what I really hope to get from this month.
My goal this year has been developing a less frantic process, and that really culminates for me here during NaNo. In years past, I’d write and write and write until I was exhausted — and I’d be fried by the end of November. I wouldn’t work on anything for months, and tended to spend the rest of year poking my writing at a plodding pace. I’d say I had no ideas, and just resign myself to only being a NaNoWriMo writer.
Two things are different about this year for me.
The first was that I submitted a short story to a magazine and subsequently had my first short story published this summer. While I didn’t instantaneously become Ashley M. Hill, Extremely Serious Author, I did find myself thinking, Hey, maybe people could actually like what I write. So I’ve started to be tiny amount more serious with myself.
The second was that I started keeping a checklist of my ideas when I had them. I use Google Keep, so that I have one note that is my checklist, and then write any additional notes in a different note when necessary. And as it turns out, I have a lot of ideas. They’re not all novel ideas, but they’re all stories to be told.
I just have to get into the habit of telling them.
So this year I’m working on writing to a logical stopping point, and then stopping when it feels right. Instead of forcing myself to keep going further and harder, I save my progress, log my word count, and do one of the many other tasks that fill my evenings. I have a lot of things to do with my day-to-day life. I have to make sure my son is taken care of half of the time. I need to meet my other, non-writing goals. Sometimes I want to read. My boyfriend recently bought me Don’t Starve for the PS3, and I need time to enjoy that.
If I can do all of that stuff and only lose my mind once in a while, I can also find time to write.
The teal deer version — I’m doing with NaNoWriMo this year what Chris Baty intended: finding out how being a writer can fit into my life filled with social stuff, family stuff, and a day job.
(P.S. My stats are fine, if unremarkable. I ended day one with a buffer, and have written ~1600 words each day since, so I’m staying just ahead of the curve. I’m usually at about 1.25 par for the day.)