Posted on November 10, 2010 - by michelle

The perils and pleasures of writing every day

There’s nothing more intimidating than the blank page. That’s why the promotional emails infuriated me. “Write a novel in one month!!”
“Yeah, right,” I thought. You can file that one in my spam folder, right under “Lose 30 pounds in 10 weeks” and “Earn $60 an hour, without having to leave your house!” I haven’t been able to even write three chapters I can commit to in the past three years. How am I going to write a novel in one month?
But when I saw an author friend at a party who told me he was going to try it, excited at the possibility of belting out a few thousand words a day, no matter what, I have to admit I felt the envy burn. Why haven’t I made any progress on my novel in the past four years? Why do I always get excited and motivated to write for a few weeks, only to abandon the whole thing later in despair over the lack of, shall we say, magic in my words? How do you make a story magical, anyway? (You’re starting to see why I don’t get anywhere).
So, refusing to over-think yet another decision, I decided to do it. I’m trying NaNoWrimo, the National Novel Writing Month project, in which, yes, an author attempts to write a draft of a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. Here’s how it’s going so far: For an hour or so every day, I write complete nonsense. I just sketch out ideas for a scene, anything that characters could possibly do that would turn me on.
It’s excruciating to watch my beloved characters suffer flat prose, along with predictable, or even worse, outlandish plotlines, which I spew on the page just for the sake of my own entertainment. But I’ve just kept writing anyway. I need to get those first 700 words, even if they don’t make sense.
Then, later, after the ideas have percolated in my addled mind for a few hours, I find a quiet time, usually after I’ve attempted to go to sleep (hello, insomnia), and I try again. Sometimes I get a good line or two in. Sometimes the ideas take hold and even yield a decent scene.
One great thing about the daily obligation: it’s forced me to focus. In down times (on the subway, or while waiting in line for something), I find my mind wandering to my story, and how I could word something in the next scene. I’m not sure about the result will be, once the 30 days are over. Will it all hold together, once I read it as a first draft? Will I stay motivated in December? I’m not sure. But I will say this: It’s nice to put that awful self-doubt to bed for a while, and to just keep moving.
Has anyone else signed on to the NaNoWrimo challenge? If so, how’s it going? What has your writing process been like?