Thursday, August 16, 2012

NaNo and Productivity

So its another yellow day and we are getting close to the lovely weekend. So close, but still so very far.

My stomach is making a lot of noise today, gurgling and grumbling as though its trying to digest angry rhinos and I wish it would stop.

I don't feel overly productive today so that's a problem. I keep looking for jobs and its such a challenge trying to find something that doesn't sound horrible and that isn't an two hours away, and also pays well enough to keep me from becoming a homeless bridge troll. I guess I do feel productive, just the wrong kind of productive. I am in the mood to write today. Well, at least in the mood to work on my story preparations for NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo, for those who don't know, is a month long personal competition in November where you challenge yourself to write a 50000 (yes fifty thousand) word novel in one month. I only discovered it last year when I was looking for writing resources because I wanted to start my novelling process and when I found it I don't think I could have been anymore excited. I am pretty sure I drove all the people who knew I was doing it crazy but it was worth it. In one month of thirty days I wrote a novel, from start to finish of 93000 words. (I cannot remember the exact number and my Internet is being fussy so I can't go check right now) but its a lot okay. It was probably one of the hardest and most fun things I have ever done and for sure one of the most rewarding.

I spent a good month planning out my novel, developing back stories and families for all of my characters (even the minor ones) and building the world in which my story would take place. Then, when November hit and my novel started to progress, almost everything changed.  Character plans switched, plots were dropped, plots were invented on the spot, connections were made, characters added, everything changed and yet it still retained the basic points I had wanted so it was good enough.

The absolute best part about Nano is that you are not supposed to care about quality. You can write whatever you want, any kind of redundant gibberish and it still counts. Although this was very hard for me as a notorious perfectionist, it was very liberating to be allowed to flounce around in the world of babble, allowing all the crazy scenarios in my head be used for good instead of for crazy.

Anyways, the point of this story is that if you have ever wanted to write you should TRY IT. It is so great and challenging and even more rewarding then monkey trained to make ice cream sundays. The bigger point is, today is going to be a  long day and I think the only way I can survive it is living half in my fantasy world in my mind.

Oh, side note. I suggest not promising someone they can read it/giving it as a Christmas gift. It then puts a lot of pressure and makes you feel really silly and paranoid about everything you wrote at 3am all month. But that could be because I am crazy, because most authors want people to read their work. Just word to the wise: give yourself time to edit, November-December is not enough.

1 comment:

  1. something about this particular picture reminds me greatly of a white blonde/super cute 3 year old Tanya sitting at the kitchen table (that was at her chin level) feverishly colouring with fat crayons...while chewing on her tongue... I have no idea why... perhaps it has something to do with sprinkles? LOL

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