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36230, chapter 5

Chapter 5 is complete, and I’m at 36k words. About right for an 80k word novel in 12 chapters, but I can’t help thinking I’m a bit behind (also I’m not sure if what i have planned for the leadup to the final scenes will actually work).

I had wanted to get through chapter 6 today, but it looks like I’ll finish 06 tomorrow. Finishing 50,000 words will not be much trouble–I likely will have that Friday–but it’ll be a lot harder to get the STORY done. That, I’m not so sure about.

The story itself should take at least 75k words–the question, of course, is whether or not I can get that many done in less than two weeks. I’m not quite halfway there, but I should pass 40,000 words tomorrow. But I don’t think I’ll have enough time, late in the week, to write all the words.

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Nanowrimo 21650 and catching up.

I have to admit, this year’s NaNo has really suffered from my lack of bandwidth.

Going to the writein was far more helpful than I would have expected–not only did I write over 2k words at the write-in, it reminded me that if i just time myself and focus on spelling later, well, i can get a lot done.

In the end it is important to remember (at least for me) that… well I’m going to agonize over word choice at some point. Because that’s what I do. I didn’t write poetry for years for no reason at all.

But I don’t have to agonize over word choice at the beginning.

This is a story. Tell their story.

Agonize later.

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“A novel is a living thing” day 17, 24650

From the NaNoWriMo pep talk from Chris Cleave:

A novel is a living thing and it resists containment within the structures we erect for it. Even worse, the novel has intelligence and it will inevitably turn against its creator. Think of it like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park. The problem is that a good character in a novel will reach a point of maturity where he or she is not necessarily biddable.

What always keeps me going at certain points is when I myself no longer am sure what happens next. When the characters start to tell me things.

I used to love when this would happen when I was acting, on rare occasions. Like I would feel that sometimes, I would raise them, create them, materialize them, separate from me and the page and even the fusion of me and the page until there was almost this third thing, this ghost, that haunted the both of us. This universal character that existed apart from the two things that had made it flesh.

This is what I love most about the drafting process, that almost Dr. Frankenstein feeling of something lifted from disparate parts to a life of its own.

Except hopefully without the villagers, small child killing, and especially without the bolts. They just look painful.