NaNoWriMo is here again! I would've blogged earlier but somehow the Internet keeps acting up everytime I want to log into Blogger.
So anyway! To catch up, there was a book launch party on October 31st, and by the time I got home at about midnight, the last thing I wanted to work on was a 50,000 word novel. (What I did was fire up Thief: Deadly Shadows. Have you played it? It's awesome.) When I did finally start writing – at 8pm on 1st November – I only managed to crank out 670 words.
This is something new for me. Usually with every NaNoWriMo I've taken part in, I start writing furiously, fueled by enthusiasm and ambition. This year, even though I've got a story I want to put down on paper and have the basic outline in my head, I don't really seem too excited by it. Not like previous years anyway. This seems to be reflected in my miserable wordcount.
(Talking about my wordcount, the NaNoWriMo site seems to be having its annual early hiccup, wherein the their servers NEVER work for the first few days of November. This means that I cannot post up the magic wordcount updater on my blog, which is a bit of a downer. I'll have to be patient and wait.)
I thought about this on the drive to work today and I think this could be the effect of completing last year's NaNoWriMo challenge of reaching 50,000 words but not actually finishing the novel itself. The novel I wrote last year is still being worked on; sadly, at a pace slower than your grandma's driving (sometimes even slower than Streamyx). I still want to finish that novel, but it will have to wait until after November, when I'm done with this year's novel...or at least 50,000 words worth of it anyway.
So with that in mind, could it be I feel less excited about the novel I'm currently writing because my enthusiasm is spread over two ideas for books? Perhaps.
Or maybe I'm just lazy. But then again the potential of having two unfinished novels by the end of 2008 is something to look forward to! One finished novel is better than two unfinished novels, but two unfinished novels is better than saying "I'm going to write a novel one day" every time you go to a literary meet.
That concludes my first NaNoWriMo stream-of-consciousness rant.
If anyone's interested, right now I'm up to 1636 words. Only about 3400 words behind schedule. No biggie. I can catch up ... I hope.
So anyway! To catch up, there was a book launch party on October 31st, and by the time I got home at about midnight, the last thing I wanted to work on was a 50,000 word novel. (What I did was fire up Thief: Deadly Shadows. Have you played it? It's awesome.) When I did finally start writing – at 8pm on 1st November – I only managed to crank out 670 words.
This is something new for me. Usually with every NaNoWriMo I've taken part in, I start writing furiously, fueled by enthusiasm and ambition. This year, even though I've got a story I want to put down on paper and have the basic outline in my head, I don't really seem too excited by it. Not like previous years anyway. This seems to be reflected in my miserable wordcount.
(Talking about my wordcount, the NaNoWriMo site seems to be having its annual early hiccup, wherein the their servers NEVER work for the first few days of November. This means that I cannot post up the magic wordcount updater on my blog, which is a bit of a downer. I'll have to be patient and wait.)
I thought about this on the drive to work today and I think this could be the effect of completing last year's NaNoWriMo challenge of reaching 50,000 words but not actually finishing the novel itself. The novel I wrote last year is still being worked on; sadly, at a pace slower than your grandma's driving (sometimes even slower than Streamyx). I still want to finish that novel, but it will have to wait until after November, when I'm done with this year's novel...or at least 50,000 words worth of it anyway.
So with that in mind, could it be I feel less excited about the novel I'm currently writing because my enthusiasm is spread over two ideas for books? Perhaps.
Or maybe I'm just lazy. But then again the potential of having two unfinished novels by the end of 2008 is something to look forward to! One finished novel is better than two unfinished novels, but two unfinished novels is better than saying "I'm going to write a novel one day" every time you go to a literary meet.
That concludes my first NaNoWriMo stream-of-consciousness rant.
If anyone's interested, right now I'm up to 1636 words. Only about 3400 words behind schedule. No biggie. I can catch up ... I hope.
As Sally Field almost said: Run Ted run!
ReplyDeleteI would have preferred Robin Wright Penn saying it but Sally Field pun boleh lah!
ReplyDeleteThanks Amir!
http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/219532
ReplyDeleteI seriously doubt I will make it, but I will try my best! Since I'm writing a hack-and-slash fantasy set in the forgotten realms, you'd think it'd be easier... sigh.
That's always the case isn't it? You think you've made it easy for yourself and then when you dive in, it isn't as clear cut as you thought it would be!
ReplyDeleteTed - I'm feeling the same way, too, about this year's NaNo. Even tho I'm keeping up with the daily word count, I'm not feeling too enthusiastic about it this year.
ReplyDeleteEt tu Chet? At least you're doing better than me so far! (I was planning to beat your word count yesterday but it didn't work...)
ReplyDelete