Yes, I’m slogging through the madness of NaNoWriMo.
The video above is a good indication of how we NaNo-ites or NaNo-etta’s feel about now.
I could only take three minutes of the video. She’s a good singer–sorta.
I’ve been typing words upon words,
compiling hundreds, then thousands.
Fifty thousand words is the goal; 1,667 words per day.
And I have a head cold. Been in my house for the past three days.
My oldest son feeds me cough drops, meds, and ginger ale.
I’m forcing myself to write. It allows me to not think about the 21 people I’ll have to prepare Thanksgiving for in a couple of weeks.
I’m writing a novel with multi-cultural characters, three generations of women and men, the Mexican culture of curanderismo (that means healers), and a love potion that goes awry.
By this time, I should be at the second plot twist, according to Storyfix. (give or take five pages).
I double checked my pages and yes, I’m close to that point.
Here’s a screen shot of my NaNo page—I don’t know about that novel cover increasing my odds, but could be, it is part of visualization— And, lest I forget, I do have some empty badge area sections:
Writing partner and halo. If anyone wants to be a writing partner, hit me up. I really don’t know how to do this step but I’ll figure it out.
Participating in NaNoWriMo is a great way to a first draft. Far from perfect yes, but useful.
And don’t refer to it as a “shitty first draft,” because it’s not. It’s raw, you put in some effort, yeah, it’s imperfect, just like your first time at bat, or your golf swing, or the first time you made a casserole.
Remind yourself that you started with a goal. You accomplished it. You now have something to build on.
You have words, lots of them, to play with after the first draft is completed.
Well, you probably won’t play with them, you’ll do the edit, delete dance. Then you’ll pull your hair out a few times, and laugh your head off while doing said hair pulling, because you’ll remember—‘member this now—it’s your first draft.
It’s okay.
It will take time and hard work to shape it up, revise, plug plot holes, revise, and love it into being better.
Remember, first drafts can be powerful. Remind yourself that you carved out time for your writing, you set your creativity loose and you were courageous until the finish line (whatever that is to you: 50K or 25K words).
Only 24,610 more words to go.
Write On!
(Please excuses any left out comma’s or other grammatical errors. I’m partially delirious now). Thank you.
alvaradofrazier.com 