My Precious
Do you know what is the most amazing and important aspect of NaNoWriMo? The dogged determination which arises within us when we come face-to-face with a road block.
For many of us writers, those first few pages [or chapters] of a novel are the most challenging and the most agonizing. We must not only hook our readers, but we must introduce the conflict and the setting in such a way that does not insult our readers’ intelligence. No info dumps. No telling the way it is. Discovery, that is what must comprise those first pages.
Those are our doom, as well.
The first pages/chapters make or break a novel. If I don’t feel it is going well, that particular project is shuffled off to the dreaded back-burner until a much later date.
NaNoWriMo forces us to push through that blockade. If we pay attention to that fact outside of NaNo, we come to learn an important lesson about ourselves and of what we are capable if we simply succumb to determination [or stubbornness] simply to meet a goal.
Why this epiphany took four years of NaNo-ing, I have no idea.
NaNoWriMo Daily Word Count
Fourth year (and counting!)
Searching for Sara
Inspirational Romance
- 1,941 – the first 400 words were THE HARDEST EVER
- 1,769 – had a full-day snorkeling trip and almost FORGOT about my word count!
- 2,431 – all written on the airplane on my way home from Maui
- forgot to get the count…
- 1,382 – recovering from the late nights, early mornings, and long travel after vacation
- 1,903 – took all day. i really need to hush my critic so i can hear my characters
- 1,671
- 1,762 – alot of drivel, but I can edit it out next month.
- 2,923
- 709 – we have a new puppy…
- 1,922
- 2,126
- 1,682
- 960
- 1,700
- 1,048 – need to brainstorm a bit to smooth the next flow of story
- 1,789 – introduction of the love triangle!
- 1,706
- 606 – the too early intro of the love triangle put me into a corner
- 3,146 – postponed the intro of the love triangle
- 1,913 – almost let my characters off the hook. =)
- 2,043
- 2,518 – we head out to Oregon tomorrow morning for a long weekend with family
- 1,915
- 1,898
- 1,769
- 1,723
- ?
- 2300
Total: 50,258
NaNo, Day 4
It became an interesting challenge, beginning the NaNoWriMo contest while still on vacation in Maui. In fact, day 2 very nearly became a big red ZERO on my word counter due to an all day snorkeling trip to Lana’i and Molokini. We arrived back at the condo at a little after 4pm (Hawai’i time, equates to 7pm PST), but so exhausted from the snorkeling, I let myself have some veg time on the couch watching my favorite style of show: crime drama. After about the 2nd hour, I realized with a start that I still had to do my word count for that day! Bolting from the couch with the exclamation, the hubs quickly surrendered my laptop (he had been catching up on fantasy football for the day) and I got busy.
Thank goodness, I finished my word count with less than 30 minutes to go (before midnight, PST). I promptly went to bed, thoroughly tired.
Yesterday I had the entire, 5-hour flight to produce my word count and even a little more before the in-flight movie began, a cute Tom Hanks + Julia Roberts romantic comedy called Larry Crowne. For one who usually doesn’t care for romantic comedies, I recommend this one. A tale of redefinition and relationship building… but I digress. Unfortunately, we didn’t land at Sea-Tac until 5 minutes before midnight, and I was unable to get to an internet connection until well after that. So, all word count widgets will show that I did not produce the 2,431 words on Day 3 but as part of Day 4.
=(
Ah well. At least I am not behind on where I should be, but right on target. One of these days I will take my two weeks of vacation when NaNo begins and get the entire 50,000 words done in those 2 weeks. But for right now, I will content myself with producing the new novel that is Searching for Sara, even though much of that will likely be revised and edited come December (or January, since I need to have Of Damsels and Dragons ready for release in Q1 as well as Silver and Iron).
Writing is writing, and I’m glad to be getting that done. 
I am a writer. I adore the spinning of the unwritten tale – that lesson waiting to be divulged to others. Each day a new story beckons. One last happy ending. My characters have a life outside of my own, and I always learn from their destiny.
~ Nona ~
"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come." ~II Corinthians 5:17
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