h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Alrighty. The third week of intensive writing.

I'm currently only about half-way to where I realistically should be. I just broke the 16,000 word barrier a few minutes ago, and realistically I should be in the neighborhood of 27,000.

...actually, that first sentence doesn't mesh with the second. This morning when I had 12,000 I was about half way to where I should've been, 25,000. And 27,000 may be a bit much to report as where one should be as of now as an average word count of 1667 words per day would only get you to 26,672.

Regardless, I'm having fun. I think I've actually got a chance at finishing as I've upped my daily output to 3000 words, and I think I've found the rhythm required to keep up that pace.

And even if I don't, I like how the novel is shaping up. Oh, sure, I'm not even to the 20,000s yet and everyone says that that's where the really tough, painful work lies, but I think I can manage. We'll see.

Thing about the concept is ... you're writing because you should, not necessarily because you have an idea you want to plow through, and you're aiming for quantity.

And while I admit there are people who *can* work like that, I personally don't.

As Walt Wangerin once told me (and the rest of the kids in his writing workshop), "Revision is forgiveness. Sin all ya want."

NaNoWriMo's aim for quantity is necessary, if you ask me. I mean, sure, it's good to aim for quality writing, but if it's something on the scale as a full novel, the quality of the writing is something that can be added later once you have a good infrastructure. Sort of like if you were making a city: you'd want to start with the sewers, roads, bridges and things. Then when you finished with those you can start adding in the parks and gardens that make the city look nice.

NaNoWriMo isn't there expecting people to have a fully complete, ready to publish novel at the end of a month. NaNoWriMo is there so that people will actually finish their novel. One of the many mottos on their website, one that I think is especially apt to the process, is "November is when you write a novel. December is when you write a *good* novel."

Because honestly, if I was just doing this writing on my own, I'd write maybe 500 words a day, then I'd say "Alrighty. That's out of the way. Time to party." Then I'd forget to do my writing a few days later, and eventually I'd fall out of the habit.

I think you're selling yourself too short, Yar. I'd be willing to bet that if you pushed yourself you could make something really good in that time.

I decided to make the "Tinsel the Christmas Ninja" idea I had five or six years ago as the basis for the plot, and while I was mainly just expecting a dumb series of pages, I'm actually enjoying the story that's unfolding. (And I've discovered that Drosselmeyer is a creepier character than I ever knew before. I mean, I knew he was creepy just from his work in the Nutcracker story, but writing him as a character is weird. Everything he says sounds like he's setting you up for a monster to walk up behind you and say boo.)

Okay, then I'll come clean: I forgot about it until Veteran's Day.

Well, then, there's no reason why you couldn't set yourself a goal of having a 25,000 word story in the rest of the month. You could start tomorrow, write 2000 words a day, and be finished before December rolls around.

Well, I'm in the middle of a story. And I don't want to put it aside for a month, particularly since it's been mostly by the wayside for the last month and a half. I wrote zero pages in October. I've written about 5 so far in November, not nearly NaNoWriMo quantity, but I'm moving my story along.

I do think that writing binges help develop ideas, though, and if I weren't so behind on my main project, I'd have used this month to try out one of the side stories that's been in the back of my head.