3,858 and counting...

As the second day of NaNoWriMo winds down, I am happy to say I have already written as many words as I did during an average week of my 30,000-words-in-3-months writing stretch this summer. And I thought that was a lot of words...

The last time I participated in NaNoWriMo was in 2007, just after I had left the classroom to devote more time to writing. I had no idea what I was getting into really -- had never even finished writing a fictional short story since second grade -- but if I was going to call myself a writer, I had to prove that I had the writing chops.

And so I set out on day one with a vague idea for a story but no vision of how the plot might unfold. My strategy was just to keep writing the story one day at a time and see where it led me. By day 5 or so, I had switched to a whole different premise and a new set of characters. Through sheer stubbornness and blind determination, I crossed the 50,000 word finish line a couple of hours before midnight on November 30.

This time, I am starting from a very different place. Halfway through a novel and with a plot map that gives me, at least broadly, an idea of where the story will go. You would think that would make it easier, but today's writing session suggested otherwise.

Having an idea of what should/will happen (i.e. the dramatic action) in a scene, does not, it turns out, translate into instant details or lines of believeable dialogue, nor does it tell you at what pace the scene should unfold or how it should end. There is no "just add water" formula when it comes to bringing characters to life.

My biggest challenge this time around will be freeing my inner "madman" from the demands of the perfectionist and letting myself just write. So while 50,000 words provides a measurable goal, what matters more to me is pushing through and getting the last half of the story on paper, even if it is in no shape for other eyes to read. What matters is taking on the messy scenes that build up to the novel's crisis and the powerful emotions they evoke. What matters is silencing the voice that says "It is taking you too long to get to the heart of the scene" or "The reader will be bored by this" and writing it all down anyway. What matters is remembering that I can go back and fix it later.

Two days down, twenty-eight to go.