NaNoWriMo Eve

It is the Eve of one of my favorite and also one of the most hectic months of the year. November.

AKA National Novel Writing Month

AKA NaNoWriMo: The adventure of writing a 50k word novel in 30 days.

(But that doesn't sound fun...)

Oh, but it is! Because you're SUPPOSED to write crap. By writing crap you also write some gems. By setting out to finish, it means you aren't trying to perfect your story, so you can actually have fun being insane. You call kill off anyone and decide to bring them back because you need them. You can change ages and backgrounds and setting. Being carefree like this cracks your creative, wild side right open.

I can't wait for tomorrow.

At the start of each week, I'm going to make a little blog post about the joys and woes. I'll set goals publicly and then have to publicly admit failure if I don't keep them. Hopefully this will help me not procrastinate. I'll keep track of what I'm learning because the cool thing about NaNoWriMo is that no matter how many years you participate, you always learn. Or at least I do. This will be my forth time.

 My first time was actually for a college class (BEST ONE EVER) and we did it in February, so we only had twenty eight days. That novel (Capture Me Strong is the current title) ended up being so special to me that I'm still pouring into it after all this time--four years later. I want to get it published.

The other two I did? Not so much.

While I've tweaked and shined Capture Me Strong, I've also tried multiple times to write my next book I'll try to get published. I've started a few and then lost interest. The stories ended up not jiving with me. I just didn't care about the story or the characters.

I think I've found that was because of a lot of reasons.

1. I was going off an idea that was exciting, but that I didn't care about at a heart level.

2.

Yup, actually, I think it pretty much boils down to that one reason. I had others, but as I went to type them it was obvious number one is the only one that counts. The other things would be easy to change if my heart were in it.

So, as I go into NaNoWriMo tomorrow, my goals are:

1. Keep my heart in the story.

2. Write like no one will ever read the story except me.
If I worry about people reading this down the road, I'll only end up making time trying to be perfect. There's no room for perfection this month. 

3. Don't try to write well--just write quickly.
Make a mess! My inner editor can clean up later after I let her out of the dungeon. The most important thing for me in writing that first draft is getting it out. I've tried making it nice along the way, and it ends up not getting finished. This is the only way that works for me.  

4. Try every single thought I have that I think might make the story awesome, even if it means I'm making a giant, gooey mess. Even if it means I'm burning down houses and then magically resurrecting them.
My ideas always start out literary and then turn into sort of thrillers. It's like a mix. But so far I'm not good at making up thriller stuff--it just happens as I write, which is really exciting for me. Like watching a movie. I can't plan it, so I need to allow room for things to happen naturally.
I have an outline, which I'm sure will be torn to shreds and rebuilt into something that can potentially be pretty. 

5. Understand my weaknesses and restrictions and plan accordingly. I WILL NOT overestimate myself.
Every single year, I fall behind (after setting unrealistic goals) and then end up writing like ten thousand words a day at the end. I tell myself I can do that no problem...and I do it, but it's definitely a problem. No stress this year, yeah?

6. Write 3,000 words by Monday. And then write 2k words a day at least, making my word count goal 13k by the end of the 7th.
Like I said, I know my limits. I should be wracking up the word count in the early days, but the hubs has the weekend off and we have parties to go to. It's more important to me to enjoy as much time with him as I can. I'll try to get higher than I need to during the week, but I'm not setting unrealistic goals because there are other things I have to do with my life.

So there you have it! I'll check back on the 8th to start week two with some reflection and new goals.

If you want to be my writing buddy, you can find me here on NaNoWriMo.org.