Somewhere between awake and asleep.
I just about killed myself this weekend, I think. I really was on a roll and couldn't stop. I don't think I have ever, ever written so much in one sitting before--not even in the glory days of Lord of the Rings and my unfinished epic from hell. Actually, I have now surpassed that story, which is 35,219 words long (and was written over a period of two years), as of last night, when I wrote 2,980 more words, for a total of 36,367 altogether. That means:
36367 / 50000 words. 73% done!
Never did I ever think I would have this much. I did not even start until November 6, so this means that I have written all of this in 18 days. Not only that, but I also wrote 10,938 words in approximately 12 hours, and actually typed 17,796 words in two days.
As you can imagine, I paid for it. I was up until almost 5:00 on Sunday morning, when I stumbled into bed and fell into what felt like a total coma. I thought for sure that my brother and his wife showed up at about 10:30 and tried to get into my house. This was utterly vivid and real. I heard them knocking on the door and the window, saying, "Is she in there? What is going on?" I thought I got up to let them in and they were already gone. Apparently this was a dream, because I woke up at about noon, when the cat had one of her fits, and was still in my bedclothes. I got up to take a shower and eat something. My eyes were blurry and I felt really strange and sort of incoherent. I called my mom and talked to her for a little while, giving her the update on the previous evening. I think she thinks that I have gone crazy, and honestly, it sort of feels like I have.
I headed over to my brother's to watch the Redskins game, later in the afternoon. I filled him and my sister-in-law in on what I've been doing for the past week or so, and we spent the day watching football and hanging out with the baby, who entertained us with giggles and antics all afternoon. She took a nap, but was up in time to cheer on our team to a victory against the Seahawks, though it looked hairy for awhile. Luckily Clinton Portis and Mike Sellers are beasts, and LaRon Landry and Shawn Springs can actually catch interceptions, plus my new boyfriend Chris Horton put the beat down on some dudes once or twice.
After the game was over, my s-i-l and I went to Kroger's to get a turkey, which is now in my fridge, since I have more room than they do, because I have no food, and because I've got an upright refrigerator instead of a side-by-side. So there is a giant dead bird in my refrigerator.
Anyway, once I got home I wrote the 2,980 words, and went to bed around 11:30. Again, I was totally exhausted, which was probably why I had a very strange dream, involving my old government teacher Mr. Dossie, Mehlman Cafeteria (sweet god, I want some pie!), and Barack Obama trying to teach me complex algebra. Holy hell.
So today I woke up pretty bleary-eyed and confused, once again, and went to work. Of course, it was raining pretty hard this morning, so the entire city of Columbus FREAKS OUT. Oh noes, the ground is wet, we're all going to die! I was 20 minutes late for work because of morons causing fender-benders by driving 2 mph and gawking at each other. Now I've been staring at a computer screen all day, and I have to go home and write some more.
It sure is fun, though, isn't it?
I figured out that I only have 13,633 words to go. 50,000-36,367 = 13,633, which means 13,633 words divided by 7 days left = 1947.6 words per night. Somebody call Bela Karolyi. YOUUUUU CANNN DOOOO EEEEEEETTTT.
This feels kind of amazing. I could go home and totally choke, of course, and I still hate that this is in November when there's Thanksgiving and so much other stuff to do. I'm not going to tell my family, "Hey guys, screw you; I'm going to go write now, while you're spending time together" on Thanksgiving night. But I'm glad that I'm ahead so much now, and can see this as an accomplishable goal. I choked miserably the last two years. I've been thinking about it, and came to the conclusion that maybe it was because I kept it to myself and was sort of secretive and weird about it. I had all of my LJ friends, of course, who know everything about me, particularly bone_lady who has been my number one cheerleader in all things for quite some time now (*hugs to ya, C!*).
But this year, I also had the pleasure of working with people who are not only creative-types, but who also didn't think I was lame, weird, or pretentious when I worked up the courage to say, "Oh, I'm trying to write a novel in 30 days." Because let's face it, most people, when they hear such a thing, think either, "What? Who does that?" or "What the hell are you smoking?" Not only that, but it was a pretty big deal to get to know Leslie, Ohioana's editor, a bit more this year. She is a lovely, generous, creative person who has to put up with a lot of stuff from a lot of people--she has the ability to keep me sane in a sometimes rather nutty environment (to say the least). She and I went into NaNo with very unlofty goals: we'd try and write 20,000 words, for our very own Half A**ed NaNoWriMo. I think going for this smaller goal was what actually got me started; thinking in those smaller, more believable terms, not having such unrealistic expectations of myself made it much easier--easier to just go with the flow, perhaps, and to actually break those expectations. So, thanks Leslie!
And I told my family. I might have maybe kind of mumbled something about it in previous years; I don't really remember. This is the first year that I can remember telling my mom in detail that I was doing this--and sending her links to view my profiles and this blog. I'm one of those nervous Nancies that thinks that all of my writing sucks. I've always been horribly embarrassed to show anything to anyone. Even when I'm writing fanfiction, which is not my original characters or story, which people usually tend to just say, "Oh, I liked that" or "Oh I hated that" rather than giving you constructive criticism, I always cringe before I hit "send." I have dreadful performance anxiety, I guess. In a way, though, it's easier for me to show my work to complete strangers (though I don't think of you guys on LJ as "strangers" anymore) than to my family. I've already had a couple of freak-out moments this time around, where I've been sitting on my couch writing a steamy or kissing scene, and gone, "Oh my god, my mom is going to read this!" ( Hi Mom, love ya! :D )
But mostly, though, it's been such a load off. I still get pretty nervous but when I'm telling her, or my brother, or anybody, about it, I can feel myself getting pretty excited, and my face gets kind of red, and I talk really fast. I know it, and it's really embarrassing, but I can't help it. I still have tons of doubts--I actually liked last year's story better--but this one is just pouring out, really finding a rhythm and a flow that is cohesive and easy to jump right back into. I don't think it's even going to be finished, once I hit 50,000.
I had even gone so far in doubting myself that I thought if I don't "win" NaNo this year, then that's it. I'm not really destined to be this kind of writer. I have started so much long fiction, and never finished any of it. I've pounded out short stories, in both original and fanfiction, but anything over 10,000 words, and I just choke. So, I thought, I'd give it one more whirl and see what I could come up with. If I failed, I failed, and that's it--I'm done. I'm just not supposed to be a novelist, and that's okay.
But then this just took off. I don't know if it's a fluke--it might be, which is a scary thought, too. But then, it might just be the creative jump-start I need to get going again. I've always been a pessimist, but maybe, just this once, I can look at this as a good thing--my creative juices have been flowing like crazy--I've been writing so much it's almost inhuman, not just in my story (which is untitled; I am HORRIBLE at titles), but also in other blogs, e-mails to friends, fanfiction, movie reviews, etc. I don't know how long/if this will last, but for once in my life, I'm going to go with it, and hope that this weird luck I've had this fall will extend itself a bit more.
It helped that my mom liked the excerpt that's on the NaNoWriMo site, and said that she wants to read more--that was very encouraging and made me feel really good, particularly because Mom says a book has to capture her from the first page. That's what I was going for in that opening, too, and it seems to have worked with her. (That first line, by the way, is what won me a Halloween contest on book-blog.com. Debra Hamel told me she liked my entry the best! So I went with it.)
I'm still not very confident about the story or my writing. I see crap like Twilight everywhere, which I just absolutely loathe--it's so poorly written and one-dimensional, and people love it, but a lot of other people, like me, despise it. It makes me really nervous that my stuff is god-awful crap that nobody is ever going to want to read, which makes me want to throw it in a drawer somewhere and forget it.
I suppose every writer goes through these moments of extreme terroranxiety, though. I feel weird even calling myself a "writer." I didn't go into this thinking, "I'm going to try and get published," and I don't even know if I'll try and do that now. The whole thing has been a learning process, for me, however, and despite my probably over-the-top anxiety and ever-present questioning of my own abilties, I feel pretty good. Having such a great support system, both online and in real life, has been the biggest part of what has kept me going and enabled me to come within sight of achieving this goal. Thanks, everybody.
36367 / 50000 words. 73% done!
Never did I ever think I would have this much. I did not even start until November 6, so this means that I have written all of this in 18 days. Not only that, but I also wrote 10,938 words in approximately 12 hours, and actually typed 17,796 words in two days.
As you can imagine, I paid for it. I was up until almost 5:00 on Sunday morning, when I stumbled into bed and fell into what felt like a total coma. I thought for sure that my brother and his wife showed up at about 10:30 and tried to get into my house. This was utterly vivid and real. I heard them knocking on the door and the window, saying, "Is she in there? What is going on?" I thought I got up to let them in and they were already gone. Apparently this was a dream, because I woke up at about noon, when the cat had one of her fits, and was still in my bedclothes. I got up to take a shower and eat something. My eyes were blurry and I felt really strange and sort of incoherent. I called my mom and talked to her for a little while, giving her the update on the previous evening. I think she thinks that I have gone crazy, and honestly, it sort of feels like I have.
I headed over to my brother's to watch the Redskins game, later in the afternoon. I filled him and my sister-in-law in on what I've been doing for the past week or so, and we spent the day watching football and hanging out with the baby, who entertained us with giggles and antics all afternoon. She took a nap, but was up in time to cheer on our team to a victory against the Seahawks, though it looked hairy for awhile. Luckily Clinton Portis and Mike Sellers are beasts, and LaRon Landry and Shawn Springs can actually catch interceptions, plus my new boyfriend Chris Horton put the beat down on some dudes once or twice.
After the game was over, my s-i-l and I went to Kroger's to get a turkey, which is now in my fridge, since I have more room than they do, because I have no food, and because I've got an upright refrigerator instead of a side-by-side. So there is a giant dead bird in my refrigerator.
Anyway, once I got home I wrote the 2,980 words, and went to bed around 11:30. Again, I was totally exhausted, which was probably why I had a very strange dream, involving my old government teacher Mr. Dossie, Mehlman Cafeteria (sweet god, I want some pie!), and Barack Obama trying to teach me complex algebra. Holy hell.
So today I woke up pretty bleary-eyed and confused, once again, and went to work. Of course, it was raining pretty hard this morning, so the entire city of Columbus FREAKS OUT. Oh noes, the ground is wet, we're all going to die! I was 20 minutes late for work because of morons causing fender-benders by driving 2 mph and gawking at each other. Now I've been staring at a computer screen all day, and I have to go home and write some more.
It sure is fun, though, isn't it?
I figured out that I only have 13,633 words to go. 50,000-36,367 = 13,633, which means 13,633 words divided by 7 days left = 1947.6 words per night. Somebody call Bela Karolyi. YOUUUUU CANNN DOOOO EEEEEEETTTT.
This feels kind of amazing. I could go home and totally choke, of course, and I still hate that this is in November when there's Thanksgiving and so much other stuff to do. I'm not going to tell my family, "Hey guys, screw you; I'm going to go write now, while you're spending time together" on Thanksgiving night. But I'm glad that I'm ahead so much now, and can see this as an accomplishable goal. I choked miserably the last two years. I've been thinking about it, and came to the conclusion that maybe it was because I kept it to myself and was sort of secretive and weird about it. I had all of my LJ friends, of course, who know everything about me, particularly bone_lady who has been my number one cheerleader in all things for quite some time now (*hugs to ya, C!*).
But this year, I also had the pleasure of working with people who are not only creative-types, but who also didn't think I was lame, weird, or pretentious when I worked up the courage to say, "Oh, I'm trying to write a novel in 30 days." Because let's face it, most people, when they hear such a thing, think either, "What? Who does that?" or "What the hell are you smoking?" Not only that, but it was a pretty big deal to get to know Leslie, Ohioana's editor, a bit more this year. She is a lovely, generous, creative person who has to put up with a lot of stuff from a lot of people--she has the ability to keep me sane in a sometimes rather nutty environment (to say the least). She and I went into NaNo with very unlofty goals: we'd try and write 20,000 words, for our very own Half A**ed NaNoWriMo. I think going for this smaller goal was what actually got me started; thinking in those smaller, more believable terms, not having such unrealistic expectations of myself made it much easier--easier to just go with the flow, perhaps, and to actually break those expectations. So, thanks Leslie!
And I told my family. I might have maybe kind of mumbled something about it in previous years; I don't really remember. This is the first year that I can remember telling my mom in detail that I was doing this--and sending her links to view my profiles and this blog. I'm one of those nervous Nancies that thinks that all of my writing sucks. I've always been horribly embarrassed to show anything to anyone. Even when I'm writing fanfiction, which is not my original characters or story, which people usually tend to just say, "Oh, I liked that" or "Oh I hated that" rather than giving you constructive criticism, I always cringe before I hit "send." I have dreadful performance anxiety, I guess. In a way, though, it's easier for me to show my work to complete strangers (though I don't think of you guys on LJ as "strangers" anymore) than to my family. I've already had a couple of freak-out moments this time around, where I've been sitting on my couch writing a steamy or kissing scene, and gone, "Oh my god, my mom is going to read this!" ( Hi Mom, love ya! :D )
But mostly, though, it's been such a load off. I still get pretty nervous but when I'm telling her, or my brother, or anybody, about it, I can feel myself getting pretty excited, and my face gets kind of red, and I talk really fast. I know it, and it's really embarrassing, but I can't help it. I still have tons of doubts--I actually liked last year's story better--but this one is just pouring out, really finding a rhythm and a flow that is cohesive and easy to jump right back into. I don't think it's even going to be finished, once I hit 50,000.
I had even gone so far in doubting myself that I thought if I don't "win" NaNo this year, then that's it. I'm not really destined to be this kind of writer. I have started so much long fiction, and never finished any of it. I've pounded out short stories, in both original and fanfiction, but anything over 10,000 words, and I just choke. So, I thought, I'd give it one more whirl and see what I could come up with. If I failed, I failed, and that's it--I'm done. I'm just not supposed to be a novelist, and that's okay.
But then this just took off. I don't know if it's a fluke--it might be, which is a scary thought, too. But then, it might just be the creative jump-start I need to get going again. I've always been a pessimist, but maybe, just this once, I can look at this as a good thing--my creative juices have been flowing like crazy--I've been writing so much it's almost inhuman, not just in my story (which is untitled; I am HORRIBLE at titles), but also in other blogs, e-mails to friends, fanfiction, movie reviews, etc. I don't know how long/if this will last, but for once in my life, I'm going to go with it, and hope that this weird luck I've had this fall will extend itself a bit more.
It helped that my mom liked the excerpt that's on the NaNoWriMo site, and said that she wants to read more--that was very encouraging and made me feel really good, particularly because Mom says a book has to capture her from the first page. That's what I was going for in that opening, too, and it seems to have worked with her. (That first line, by the way, is what won me a Halloween contest on book-blog.com. Debra Hamel told me she liked my entry the best! So I went with it.)
I'm still not very confident about the story or my writing. I see crap like Twilight everywhere, which I just absolutely loathe--it's so poorly written and one-dimensional, and people love it, but a lot of other people, like me, despise it. It makes me really nervous that my stuff is god-awful crap that nobody is ever going to want to read, which makes me want to throw it in a drawer somewhere and forget it.
I suppose every writer goes through these moments of extreme terroranxiety, though. I feel weird even calling myself a "writer." I didn't go into this thinking, "I'm going to try and get published," and I don't even know if I'll try and do that now. The whole thing has been a learning process, for me, however, and despite my probably over-the-top anxiety and ever-present questioning of my own abilties, I feel pretty good. Having such a great support system, both online and in real life, has been the biggest part of what has kept me going and enabled me to come within sight of achieving this goal. Thanks, everybody.