(no subject)

[stoopbeck]

I've taken a big step this month. Like the last two years previous, I signed up for NaNoWriMo. But this year, I'm going to actually finish. I've got an actual plot and a vague outline and characters and everything. I even know how my story will eventually end up. Whether I ever get it published doesn't really matter (although it would be nice to eventually have a beach house in Ireland or some such in which I can spend my days writing and my nights counting my money and the boxed sets of my novels). What matters is that I'm writing.


Sure, a thousand words here and there don't seem like much to people who don't understand writing, but it's not just a thousand words. It's sentences, with grammar and words and stuff. It's dialogue, where you're keeping track of several different voices, and while A and B are talking, you're describing what's going on around them so that they're not floating in a featureless void. It's another world that is being constructed brick by brick, word by word, and I'm sorry that it takes my full concentration to make word mortar. Which would be an excellent band name, by the way. "Word Mortar." Just saying.


And it's not like I'm sitting around on my butt all day, writing a word here and a word there. I work hard at my job, doing a lot of physical labor, and then I come home and write. Today, the time I would usually spend writing just before lunch time got usurped by cleaning up after two exploding toilets. Two hours of scrubbing later, and I still hadn't completed my word count goal for the day. Instead of collapsing into bed, I typed. And while I did fall asleep on my keyboard (I had about three pages that looked like repetitions of this: "kjhg gh hgh h nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn," n repeating), when I awoke I got myself together, deleted all the crazy face writing, and worked on completing my daily word count.

This is what I want to do with my life. It's what keeps me sane. I know other people have other interests in life, but just let me have mine, okay? Thank you.



(Anyone interested in joining my new band, Word Mortar? All positions are open.)

Comments

[mei-chan1029.livejournal.com]

As I fellow writer, I relate and envy your progress with your manuscript. I've wanted to write so often but only feel creative and inspired at night...and knew I couldn't get up to write because I had to get up early for work the next morning. I don't know how you do it since you get up earlier than I do and perform harder work. I've still been struggling to get my body right after the surgery and it messes with my energy level. So can I share song-authorship in your band? :P

[stoopbeck.livejournal.com]

You know, I used to only get the writing inspiration at 2:30 in the morning. So I'd end up writing until the sun came up, and then I'd be tired, and then when I had to write for a class I'd be up a creek until 2:30 in the morning.

The nice thing about NaNo is that it's forcing me to develop a writing routine. I don't know how you feel about Stephen King, but he wrote a really excellent book on writing. It's titled, ironically enough, "On Writing." He suggests that the best thing for a writer to do is pick a time of the day that is just for writing, and for that hour or thirty minutes or whatever, to just write. NaNo's keeping me on track. I'm writing whether I feel the urge or not. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up the routine once November's over. :P

Sure! I can use all the bandmembers I can get! :D

[mei-chan1029.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tips! I'll look into the book and maybe NaNo, too. What's the website? I know I could Google it but I thought I would ask anyway. That sounds like a good idea and might work. So many nights I go to sleep thinking, "oh, I could write about this tomorrow, or maybe that," but tomorrow comes and I don't remember half of it or don't feel like it. So having a routine could be good! Guess that's what those due dates did for me. :) So do we get to see snippets of your writing?