Adventures In Novellaing, Um, Novellating? Writing A Novella? Darn.
So it is National Novel Writing Month. I chickened out of it last year, rationalizing that I wanted to focus on writing short stories that I could try to submit for publication. All well and good, but I still haven't submitted, although I have a couple pieces just about ready to go. This year, then, I decided to do it. But then I forgot all about it until November 1st, so I went into the project with no plan.
On the surface, this was a good thing, because I could just start writing and playing and seeing what happened, and hopefully cross the 50000 word threshold with something that superficially resembled a plot. To make it totally liberated, I decided to write a fantasy story, ala George R. R. Martin, since I just recently finished A Dance With Dragons. I had an intriguing opening dream sequence, and a troubled protagonist with a haunted past that included a monastery. Monasteries are gold when it comes to fantasy stories.
But then the trouble came after the first few days. I wasn't able to write much due to a frenzy at work, thanks to the National Bank Transfer movement that saw a massive surge of inquiries and applications for membership with the credit union. And then when I did write, all that happened was that the hero had a bad dream, looked out the window, and then ran through city streets until he got to the gate. I tried to inject some soldiers going door to door, but it all fell flat. It was like Myst, in that the character was just walking around, looking around. I never did get the hang of Myst. I was never much of one for computer games that I couldn't win easily.
So I decided to go back to the old tried-and-true method of writing about obsessions, such as my obsession with why someone acted they way they did that one time. After all, no one is really going to read this, so I might as well use it as a repository for psychological speculation. Now, all of a sudden, I cranked out 1500 words in just a couple of hours.
Encouraging stuff. I'm sure there is a profound lesson here when it comes to the mysteries of writing, but I'm not sure I have time to explore it as of yet. On to 50,000 words!
On the surface, this was a good thing, because I could just start writing and playing and seeing what happened, and hopefully cross the 50000 word threshold with something that superficially resembled a plot. To make it totally liberated, I decided to write a fantasy story, ala George R. R. Martin, since I just recently finished A Dance With Dragons. I had an intriguing opening dream sequence, and a troubled protagonist with a haunted past that included a monastery. Monasteries are gold when it comes to fantasy stories.
But then the trouble came after the first few days. I wasn't able to write much due to a frenzy at work, thanks to the National Bank Transfer movement that saw a massive surge of inquiries and applications for membership with the credit union. And then when I did write, all that happened was that the hero had a bad dream, looked out the window, and then ran through city streets until he got to the gate. I tried to inject some soldiers going door to door, but it all fell flat. It was like Myst, in that the character was just walking around, looking around. I never did get the hang of Myst. I was never much of one for computer games that I couldn't win easily.
So I decided to go back to the old tried-and-true method of writing about obsessions, such as my obsession with why someone acted they way they did that one time. After all, no one is really going to read this, so I might as well use it as a repository for psychological speculation. Now, all of a sudden, I cranked out 1500 words in just a couple of hours.
Encouraging stuff. I'm sure there is a profound lesson here when it comes to the mysteries of writing, but I'm not sure I have time to explore it as of yet. On to 50,000 words!
Labels: freedom of fiction, NaNoWriMo, writing, writing exercise
posted by Devin at 5:11 PM
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