NaNoWriMo: Halfway There
Day 16: 15 Days of Writing Discipline, 15 More to Go
So today marks the beginning of the second half of my NaNoWriMo journey.
I really never expected to make it this far. My experience thus far is that my writing is a series of stops and gos, spurts of inspiration followed by long pauses of thought and reflection and, of course, life obligations (work and family, anyone?)
But what I’ve really found, in the process of discovering other NaNoWriMo participants via a (for the time being) permanent Twitter search (in Twhirl) was that being aware that there are thousands of others doing the same thing was a great form of motivation for me.
There are also numerous tips that authors of have posted, and one that I’ve taken to heart is the main idea that this (my “novel”) is the zero-eth draft, and really, it doesn’t matter what I write — well, it should have something to do with the story — but I can ramble on and on, without any worries. The point is to get those 1700 words down everyday!
And so, even when I’m staring at my screen late at night, with the greatest desire to go to bed, I somehow find those one or two sentences that get things rolling. Suddenly, there’s 200 more words. Okay, that’s another 150. Okay, another paragraph. Now, what? Oh, yeah, let’s write about this!
The Miracle that is Scrivener
So throughout it all, one thing that has been oh-so-helpful has been Scrivener.
Some of the awesome features I like:
- Auto paragraph indent as I type.
- Write in a non-linear fashion, which is absolutely the way I write.
- Full-screen mode is pretty cool, although I don’t really yet have a need for it.
- Being able to see the “binder area” and know the sections I’ve created, or am working on. There seems to be some cool status indicators for each section, located in the inspector on the right window pane. So you can mark things as “Concept”, “Draft” or whatever.
- The word count on the bottom of the app window. It shows the current word count in your current “chapter”, but a Command-Option-Shift-S shows the count for the entire document.
If anything, I’m going to hit the 50,000 word count just so I can get Scrivener at 50% off!
The Writing Process
I’m finding the entire writing process quite fascinating. From trying to recall a plot that is over 15 years old, to writing everyday at least 1700 words, to jumping around in oh, so random a manner (thanks to Scrivener), it’s really been pleasantly surprising (but hard) work.
Not only do I write in a non-linear fashion, but because I freelance and have lots of family obligations, I’m jumping around doing everything else. All I do is keep Scrivener open — seems to be rock solidly stable, no crashes, not even once! — and jump in whenever I have a thought or idea. And those certainly come to me at times of day: washing dishes, going to the bathroom, showering, picking up the kids, reading other stuff online, etc. It’s fun!
What’s amazing is developing the discipline to write everyday the same amount of word: 1700 words, knowing that more often than not, a major portion of the writing will eventually be discarded.
But guess what? That’s okay when you think about it, since it’s the same with any other type of creative artform. A painter will make countless sketches and thumbnails before deciding on the final project. A photographer takes tons of photos, only to get a few keepers. So it should be no surprise that writing is the same. It’s just we often don’t think of writing in the same artform kind of way.
