Ahead? Behind? Above? Below?

The past 17 days have been pretty interesting. I started reading Natalie Goldberg's "Writing Down the Bones" right before October started. The book is incredible and was a really amazing kick start to this month of writing. My creative juices are flowing, I feel good about what I'm writing, I've been writing here or there or thinking about writing almost constantly, and I haven't been solely focused on my novel. Last Sunday, I spent 3 hours in the park writing about something completely different. I've written the beginnings or ideas to or entire short stories in my writing journal. I've been in a warm, lapping ocean of creativity, and honestly, I couldn't be happier. I haven't been as on top of the novel as part of me would like (the other part is really happy with the way things are just going with the flow over here). I've missed four days of novel writing, but i figured it out this morning, and if you take those days away, I'm right on track with day 13. I think the approach I've been taking for the past few weeks has worked well for me--having a main project, but working on a few little things on the side, and taking the ocassional day off--and i think it's much more sustainable over the long term, so i don't think i'm going to change anything. I'm going to continue to try to write every day, and use the weekends as my make-up time , and when I get to 50,000 words or 31 days of writing, or when I think my story is done, I'll stop.

That's all not to say that I'm not constantly ignoring my self-doubts and insecurities (I am), but I'm choosing to focus on the positives and not let the fact that maybe everything I'm writing is garbage get to me. At least I'm writing, right? And writing is what I love. So what does it matter if it sucks?

I am the hippie zen master of my writing world. Today anyway.

Day 3: Part Deux*

My plan last night was to go home, change into sweats and write until I caught up, approximately 2500 words (though I've lost my calculator and I hate the computer one, so I'm estimating here), which, to my fuzzy, congested, exhausted brain sounded overwhelming. I got home. I changed into sweats. I made and ate dinner. I cleaned a little. I smoked a cigarette. I checked my two emails, Facebook, MySpace, and Craigslist, and finally, when faced with the only thing left to do to avoid writing, watch a movie, I made myself open up my novel. I resisted every step of the way. I didn't know where to start for the third day in a row, so I began describing the small town. I kept checking my word count. 700. 813. 956. I had been writing an hour before I hit on something: the story of Lily's mother and father. Bam. That was it, I hit a stride, I pushed my inner editor ("It's too sentimental, it doesn't make sense, you're not telling enough of the details, that's not what would happen, you are misrepresenting these people, you don't know anything about Native American culture") to the back of my mind, and wrote for another hour and a half.

Total for Day 3: 2956
Overall total: 5582

*This is a post I wrote yesterday, but wasn't able to post due to some technical dificulties.

Day 3: We All Fall Down, erm, Behind

Day 2 started off well, and then trickled into decline. I got up slightly later than day one, and wrote from 6:30 to 7:15 am. In 45 minutes, I was able to knock out about 900 words, most of which are a flashback to give some depth and background to my main character, who I also named yesterday. Her name is Lily. Yippee! 2 characters named. I still have no idea about the baby, but I'm sure something will come to me. I also gave my main character an Indian name, but I think I should have held off. I still don't know which direction to take her character; that might need to be rewritten in the editing phase. I also switched from first person to third so that I can have a broader range in telling the story. Last year's story involved a main character and a pretty straightforward plot line. This time, I want to try to do something more complex.

I started coming down with a head cold at some point during the day yesterday, and by the time I got home last night, I was too tired to write. Ditto for getting up this morning. However, I am planning to go home after work, change into my sweats, and dedicate a couple of hours to try to get into a writing "zone" where I can write a lot and really dive into the story.

So, my totals so far are
Day 3: 0 (eek!)
Overall: 2635

Thanks for all of your encouragement!

Day 1: In the beginning

...there was the word. And I had to force it out of me and onto the page.

Slow going this morning, but I had to get my quota in because I have plans tonight. my inner editor was telling me to write "better," I worried that I don't know my characters or my story line yet, and I was stressed to fill the quota before work. I'm resisting every urge in my body to tell you how terrible these first paragraphs are.

I went to bed as early as I could last night so I could get up at 6 this morning. I did very little this year to prepare, and I didn't even pull my "No Plot, No Problem" kit off the shelf until this morning. I settled in with my coffee around 6:15, read the Day 1 card, which says to start anywhere, and looked over my very sparse notes. I wrote the first sentence. I reread the first sentence. I shook my head, whispered, "to hell with it," and started stumbling around my characters' trailer. It wasn't pretty. I don't know my characters yet, and I don't know the plot. My main character is Native American, earthy/pagan, young, married to a steel worker, spiritual. I haven't quite figured out how to do that yet, but I think as I keep writing, her voice will start to come through. Also, I started in the first person this morning, but think i might switch to third. I want to show a lot of different characters' perspectives, and I think third will work better.

Day 1 word count: 1735
Total word count: 1735

Here We Go Again...

...on our owwwwn. Da Da. Goin' down the only road we've ever knooo-wone. Da Da. like a drifter i was born to ROCK ALONE!!! um, right, so NaNoWriMo is beginning again, and here I am again, ready to detail all of my pleasures and pains and excitements and disappointments and sleepy hallucinations, all for your very own reading enjoyment, you know, the 2 of you who may actually be reading this.

If you're lucky, I MAY even post a little excerpt or two. We'll see how that goes.

So, a lot of you have been asking me, "When can I read the novel you wrote last year?" Well, here's the thing. Writing is an elusive beast, and one that most writers are terrified of. We are all very attached to our writing and we're afraid that it's terrible, and we tend to revert back to the second grade feeling of having your pants pulled down in front of the entire 5th grade during recess. So, we tend to keep our writing pretty much to ourselves until someone writes us a check and puts it out there for us.

I don't know if that answered your question, but I think you get the idea.

For those of you who are just joining us (welcome!), last year, I wrote a novel in a month. I am again going to be joining several friends in the National Novel Writing Month challenge, which is to write 50,000 words in 31 days. MOST people do NaNoWriMo in November, but we all think that's silly because it only has 30 days AND we most of us travel for Thanksgiving and can't write when we're in a turkey coma. Also, we are not most people, are we? No. I think not.

So, as this is the second time I've done this, I gotta admit, I'm going in a little cocky. I know this is not a good thing. I know that I'm going to crash and burn at some point. But I can't help it. I'm all like "Whatever, I did this last year. I can do it again." Ahhh, the mighty (me) are about to fall. I know it, and yet I'm doing nothing about it.

So, basically, me and 5 of my friends are all going to begin our own 50,000 word novel beginning at midnight tonight and ending at midnight on October 31. That boils down to about 1,667 words per day. We have all modified the original "rules" somewhat to fit our own goals, etc, but I'm a purist and a type-A anal retentive, so I'm basically doing it the way it was originally set up to be done. I'm starting with a new story, I'm going to write at least 50,000 words, I'm not going to sleep or be seeing you until November.

Wish me luck!

it is finished

it is 11:02 pm, October 31, 2007. I am dressed like a roller disco zombie. all of manhattan is celebrating Halloween. And I have just written the final word of my novel. It was number 50,208.

i have no more words. except these:

THE END

almost there

i finally feel like the end is in sight, on my last day. i have 900 words left. i will finish my story today. i don't want it to end, but it's time to wrap it up.

i started this month with three friends who were aiming for the 50,000 word mark. i think i will be the only one to reach it. it's a bit lonely here at the finish line. i was looking forward to celebrating with them, but it looks like i will be celebrating alone. or not celebrating, more likely.

that's all for now. i'll let you know when i finish.

the book report

not too much to report. the good news is i'm still on track at almost 43,000 words. the other news is that i just got to the point i've been trying to get to for a week and a half. i'm not sure if it's the climax or not; it might be the main conflict and i've just taken way too long to get there, or it might be the climax. um. i feel like i should know. but i don't. so, anyway, i've got roughly 7,000 words to figure it out. if it's the main conflict and it took me 43,000 words to get there i figure i've got at least another 50,000 or so to go. if it's the climax, i can probably wrap her up by Wednesday. i'm going to try to wrap her up by Wednesday.

on a more philosophical note, the older i get the more i realize how little I have control over in my life. i like control. i like plans. i don't like changes in my plans. i thought i had this novel planned out, but what i've learned is that i don't even have control over this thing that i'm creating. i am the only person touching it, i am the only person who has seen it, yet it keeps leaping out of my grasp and sliding through my fingers. and you know what? i actually like it. it's as if this novel is a living thing, one that i've breathed life into. and here i am, at almost to 50,000 words, and i don't even know if i'm almost done or only halfway through. i guess i'll just have to play it by ear a little longer. I'll let you know when i figure it out.

Isn't acceptance the final step?

There are seven days left in this adventure. The land is beginning to rise on the horizon, and i feel immensely calm. I've written about 37,500 words, and i'm confident that i'll be able to reach the 50,000 word goal. i'm about 1,000 words behind right now, but i plan on sequestering myself for the entire weekend and writing until i'm satisfied. i am no longer worried about the quality of the writing or whether the plotline or characters are interesting. i'm confident that even if the novel is a complete failure writing-wise, i've learned enough in the process to have made writing it worth it many times over. my mindset at this point is to finish the story that i've started, good or not, engaging or not. i figure that the first time you do anything, the goal is not to succeed but to learn and to do one's best. this novel is by no means a masterpiece. i don't even know if i would read it if someone else had written it. but that's okay with me, surprisingly. somewhere along the way, i seem to have shed my unrealistic expectations and hyperemotional fear of failure and have come to wonder whether it's possible for any artistic endeavor, when undertaken with sincerity and vigor and effort, to be a failure. I have accepted this work for what it is, even though i'm not entirely sure i've figured that out yet. I feel a little bit maternal about it: no matter how ugly or misshapen or stupid it may be, it's my baby, and i love it.

and after all, you know what they say: stupid babies need the most attention. this one will be getting a lot of attention after this project is over.

deep breath, or Day 17

Daily word count: 4,096
Total word count: 27,773

okay, okay, sorry to be so goddamn emotional. i locked myself in my room tonight (with an hour break for good behavior to watch "pushing daisies," which, by the way, is adorable and visually stimulating, and relatively well-written) and got myself back on track, word-count wise, and hopefully also story-wise. i finally moved the story forward instead of laterally, by writing my first sex scene. except that i was kind of embarrassed to write it and so did more alluding than elucidating. but whatever. i like it better that way. i'm just guiding the imagination anyway.

i feel pretty good. i passed the halfway point in word count. I've peaked, even if my story hasn't, and now i'm at 27,000 words. it's all downhill from here baby. i think i'll be okay after all...i don't expect the second "half" of my events to really total half of the pages, but i do think i'm still a little behind.

thank you, all of you, for putting up with my mood swings and being so encouraging! you have no idea how much it means to me when you e-mail or ask me how my writing is going. it helps to keep me focused on what i'm doing and why.

a lot of people have asked me what my story is about. i haven't told anyone anything, and i probably won't until i'm done writing it. but maybe i'll put up an excerpt when all of this is over.

kisses, and good night, friends. thank you for caring, and reading, and supporting me. it means more to me than you know.

drowning, floating, flying

i'm wondering, though not for the first time, if i am somehow psychologically impaired. my emotions with this project have been a roller coaster--euphoric one day, crushed the next. confident and pleased with my writing, then insecure and frustrated. in my last blog i was ambivalent, blase even. today, i'm frustrated and tempted to rip the damn manuscript to shreds. am i always this manic-depressive? I'm 3,000 words behind, almost at 25,000, but i'm still at the beginning of my story. i keep writing, writing, writing, but i don't feel like i'm getting anywhere. i keep trying to remind myself to write scenes that advance the story, now that i've taken care of character introduction, but i can't...seem...to....get...going. the story is stagnating, and, i fear, beginning to rot. at this point, i'm trying to decide whether to rush through the middle to get to the end by October 31 and finish at 50,000 words or whether to take my time and just keep writing past the end of October. Either way, i don't see myself not getting to 50,000. At this point, the word count is not an issue. The story is.

i want to quit

it's not that i'm tired, although i am. it's not that i'm frustrated with my writing, which i'm not, not overly so anyway. i'm not overwhelmed. i'm not overcome with emotion. i'm not falling out of my chair tired, or so lost for words. i'm over the quality issue. i don't know what it is, exactly. but i want to quit. i don't even know how to explain it. i know all of you are going to hate me for saying this, but i feel, just a little, that maybe, maybe?, this isn't challenging me enough. or maybe i'm just a pussy. or i'm cocky. or i feel like it's going to be so easy to do that i might as well not finish. or maybe it's that once it's done, then judgment time is upon me, and if i don't finish, there's no chance of failure.

i read an article awhile ago in New York magazine about gifted kids who are told all the time how smart they are. so they did studies on these kids versus average kids, challenging them with activities that were slightly above their level, and they found that the gifted kids, instead of looking stupid and risking not being able to do it, would give up much more often and much faster than the kids of average intelligence. it was the exact same puzzle. the average kids would struggle and struggle and struggle until they got it. but at the first sign of adversity the gifted kids would give up. because they didn't want to risk not being smart any more, because that was a big part of their self-image. they weren't praised for trying. they were praised for being smart.

maybe that's my problem. maybe i don't want to let down all the people who tell me i'm a great writer by writing something that isn't great. maybe i'd rather give up than disappoint someone.

either way, i didn't write yesterday. i haven't written today. and i don't want to. i want to give up. i'm starting to see how much of writing is discipline. maybe i just lack discipline. maybe i don't have it, whatever it is. i'm rambling, i know. i don't want to go face my story. i don't want to fight this urge not to write, this urge to quit, this urge to forget about the whole thing...did any of that make sense?

finally

last night, i finally had a good run. the words flowed from my subconscious through my fingertips with nary a critical word from my inner editor. i hit a stride, and what came out on paper was meaninful, emotional, and actually included a few metaphors and a bit of description. THIS is why i write. for nights like last night. i wrote 2,300 words, most of which i think i'll end up keeping. hallelujah.

this morning, i topped the 16,000 word mark.

day 8/9

alright, i'ma stop complaining now. sorry i've been so self-absorbed slash whiny slash imbecilically insecure.

1687 yesterday, about 1000 so far today. that puts me over 14,000. i'm at a point where i can see where i want to get to but i'm not sure how i'm going to get there yet. should be exciting. and by exciting i mean i'm going to write lots and lots of mundane dialogue. it's strange. i dislike first-person narrative, and i think dialogue is one of my biggest weaknesses, but this book has ended up being a first-person narrative that's at least half dialogue. i didn't mean for it to be this way. it just happened. i'm realizing for the first time what it means when an author says that the story dictated what they wrote. it's strange and surprising and even slightly magical seeming. i do kind of wish i was writing third-person description, though. ah well, this is all about breaking boundaries and stretching limits and jumping out of comfort zones, no? pardon the cliches, but i'm using all the creative juices i can muster for all that insanely banal dialogue i'm typing up.

is everyone else viciously sleep deprived and it's only tuesday, or is it just me?

by the hair of my, well, you know

i made my first week's word count...barely...after typing off and on all day yesterday. at the end of the day, i had 11,481 words. i used up my "extra word" cushion friday and saturday, when i was too busy/comatose to write. hopefully this week will be easier. i woke up before my alarm this morning (at 5:58 AM), then wrote about 1,300 words. i'll finish up later this evening.

i'm beginning to wonder if my talent has somehow seeped out of me over the past 3 years. i'm having a lot of trouble getting from "typing" to "writing." everything i write seems flat and boring, one-dimensional, a recitation of facts more than the dynamic telling of a story. at this point, i would be embarrassed to let anyone read anything i've written so far. ed read a paragraph over my shoulder yesterday and i practically freaked out on him.

so, while quantity is the goal, i'm still struggling with the quality issue. i'm making my word counts, i have a story line, i know where i'm going and how i plan to get there, but i'm bored to death and unsure of how to breath some life into these characters.

day 6 ish

i wrote maybe 50 words before i headed out this morning. i met my friend, Ariel, for brunch, got drunk on their $15 all you can drink plus brunch brunch, peeled off to run home to pee, and fell asleep.

i woke up about an hour ago. i figure that's about an 8 hour nap. and i'm still trying to wake up. i may give up and just go back to bed. when i called ariel to apologize, she sent me to voicemail. i hope i apologized. all i remember is saying that my lips felt swollen.

then i called sarah for commiseration purposes, except that she was out and her phone was about to die. when i said something about my not writing today, she suggested that i go back to sleep and worry about it tomorrow. so, on dr. sarah's good advice, i think i'll do that.

seriously, how does anyone do this?

day 5, exhaustion

i'm exhausted. i've gotten up an hour early every day this week to write but i haven't been able to go to bed any earlier. and when i don't get enough sleep, i'm like a 3-year-old who missed her nap. cranky, irrational, prone to fits of crying and/or screaming. those of you who have had a 3-year-old (and the 2 of you who had me as a 3-year-old) know that it's not a pretty sight. and i'm not happy.

i only managed 700 words yesterday. i have a full day of obligations today, so i'm trying to write a little before i have to go do those things. i don't know when i'm going to catch up on sleep or on words. maybe tomorrow. please, god, tomorrow. i can't keep going at this pace without a break.

Day 5: 741
Total: 8840

playing it safe

although I'm doing fine on my word count, 8099 as of end-of-day yesterday, i have hit what might be called a psychological wall. it's not that i'm having trouble getting the words on the paper, it's that the words on the paper are disappointing me. i know i'm not supposed to worry about quality, but as i was waiting for the subway to take me home after jeerleader practice last night, i was thinking, thinking HARD, about my novel. something is amiss. and suddenly i had a moment of panic. what if i'm not good enough to write a book? what if i'm not skilled enough, what if my experiences don't mean enough, what if i'm just simply unable to capture that thing that makes good books good? what if, in my description of bodies and events, i am unable to capture the soul?

to this point, i feel like i've been limiting myself, writing safe. at this point, my grandmother could read my manuscript, if you know what i mean. i feel inhibited. i feel like i'm writing for my most conservative audience, and it's driving me crazy. i need to break out of this, somehow. i want edgy characters. i want REAL characters, not the boring, flat, uninteresting characters that i found in all of my "christian" novels growing up.

I'm reading a great book called "Writing Past Dark" by Bonnie Friedman that addresses a lot of the emotional aspects of writing. In her essay "Anorexia of Language" she says about fear to write what we really mean, "So many of us, practiced in administering our own internal morphine, wish to preserve harmony at all cost, to be good wives and virtuous daughters, yet write. We disregard the fugitive emotion we are not supposed to feel, and whose presence we do not understand." I'm trying to be virtuous, but virtuous is not what or who i am. i am writing, not from my heart or soul but from my head, which is sanitizing everything that i'm saying, bleaching it to the point almost of unrecognition. when i mean to have vibrant, complex, flawed characters, they are coming out static, fuzzy, and gray. i'm not sure how to break out of this, but if i don't, i'm going to have one hell of a boring and useless novel.

Day 2

Daily word count: 2,020
Total word count: 5,041

Turns out my original worry, reaching word count, is not so hard as it originally seemed.
Turns out that when your original worry turns out not to be much of a worry after all, another one is right behind to take it's place.
Turns out that all of that was about ten times more eloquent than anything i've been able to type so far.
That's the new worry. perhaps i will slow down just a little and try to see my story a little better.

onward, friends. we are star stuff.

Day 1, continued

Daily word count: 3,021
Total word count: 3,021

So my plan is to get up at 6 (well, 6:30 if you count the 2 times I allow myself to hit the snooze), write for an hour before work, and then finish up my word count in the evening. So yesterday morning, after 4 hours of sleep, I decided I'd get up at 6 even though i'd already met my word count. so, i ended up writing another 1100 words yesterday morning, which meant i could cash in on one of my "rewards." The kit that we're using encourages us to have a reward/punishment system set up with our friends. For instance, with my friend Ariel, she has permission to ask me any day out of the month (and every day if she wants to) whether i met my word count the previous day. If i haven't, I have to go to her house and wash her dishes (which is something i hate to do). And that girl always has a sinkful of dishes. Another is that I don't get to see a certain someone unless i've met my word count, so it was really nice to be able to go meet him right after work yesterday.

i went to bed early last night, woke up again at 6:30 this morning (a tad easier today than yesterday), and wrote about 1400 words. that wasn't as easy today. i feel like i'm learning to write all over again. the writing feels clunky, awkward, and rudimentary. it's supposed to be, according to my novel-writing kit, but that doesn't make it any easier not to think about quality and to put everything out of my head except the story. of course, i want it to be good. my two consolations are that i can edit to my heart's content later, and that, hopefully, i'll get in the groove and have at least one or two spurts of semi-brilliant inspiration by the time this is all over.

So, I've introduced my main character and at least four supporting characters, although i'm not sure how much any of the supports are going to appear in the end. no matter. I feel like i'm on track as far as the story goes, though i'm wondering if i'm going to get to the end of the story by the end of the month.

also, i want to say thank you so much to everyone who's e-mailed encouragement to me already! it means so much to me to know that so many people are pulling for me.