By today, I should be over 21,000 words to be on track according to the NaNo Calendar. I hate to admit it, but I’m just over 14,000.
Cheryl Anne Gardner over at PodPeep recently posted about quality vs. quantity, and I totally agreed with her from the start. The word count target on the calendar just makes me nervous, along with forum updates I’ve been getting from the St. Louis Region on the NaNo site where people are already bragging about reaching 40,000+. What creative force could one possibly muster up to create a manuscript of 40K in 13 days? I admire it, but I think over half of it must indeed be crap.
And it’s the crap that frightens me. I’ve written my own share of it now even being 7,000 words behind, but I constantly find myself wanting to go back and flush out (no pun intended) more of the story and its characters. Instead, I force myself to keep moving forward and catch up with that damned calendar.
Mind you, mine is a story born of a concept which I could have wrapped up in one page back when I started. It was a thought, an idea, a blink, a closed door deep in the recesses of my brain. It consisted of three characters in the beginning and had no complete plot nor an end. And I didn’t bother composing an outline before November 1st. I simply sat down at the keyboard and hoped the characters would take over.
And they did. It’s been tough, and I still don’t know what direction they are taking me in. But it’s happening, and that’s the process I’m enjoying out of all of this. This is a story I never would have written any time soon (in years even), had I not committed it to be this year’s NaNo Project. So the birth of it has been slow, but nice.
Well…back to it….
(324 words wasted on this post)
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I don’t buy the quality over quantity argument. You can edit the hell out of something and make it good, and the more raw material you have to work with the better. I defy anyone to write something of saleable quality on the first draft.
Barry-
I completely agree with your “first draft” argument, and certainly don’t think I’d have a nice, pristine, polished manuscript by November 30th. That’s not my intentions at all. With the story I’m personally tackling, I doubt it would be polished by NaNoWriMo 2010. What I probably failed to mention in this post is that I’m lacking a certain connection I usually have with my story and my characters by taking my own sweet time. I knew before even going into this what kind of writer I am. That is, I like to write a chapter or scene or two, then revisit it a few days later and build upon it, possibly adding hints at details that pop up later on as I write them, constantly layering my storyline as I go. I’m much more creative, than disciplined, when it comes to sitting down and writing. I don’t like deadlines and tracking charts and don’t need cheerleaders. So, that being said, maybe NaNo isn’t for me. After all, I’d rather write one really good book and take forever to do it, than participate in a month-long yearly “contest” and produce crap after crap after crap. Even Harper Lee took a year to write the first draft of To Kill A Mockingbird (her only book), and didn’t do so bad now, did she?
-Shannon
LLBR
I think one thing to keep in mind is that all writers write differently. What works for one may not be the best method for another. Even the same author may approach two different works in a completely different manner. In my YA series, I write fast. The words fly on to the pages and when I get to the end and the dust settles, I finally can stop and look back at what I have and see what works and what doesn’t.
Shannon you usually have a much more considered approach than what I think of as my data dump method (it splats on the page as fast as I can type) and during normal writing times you go back and re-read and reconsider every phrase as you go. And that is right for you, where for me it would stop me in my tracks.
I am so glad you are having fun participating in NaNoWriMo and allowing yourself to write crap. It can be a very liberating experience. And, you never know, at the end of the month you may have a little jewel somewhere in the muck heap. Enjoy the ride.
Thanks LK-
It’s definitely taking some determination. I envy you, and any other writer out there, who can “dump” a story on the page in a month or two. Heck, I was on Cloud Nine two years ago to have written two novels back to back in one year! Crap or no crap, I will finish the 50,000 words before the 30th although my story needs more than that to be told. But I may have to let it age a bit before either finishing it beyond the NaNo deadline or starting over and polishing it for completion. It’s an emotional journey either way.
-Shannon
My first draft process may be faster – but you know I agonize over the next phase of editing. That takes me forever, partly because I always think something can be done to improve the work, and partly because I’m always ready to move on to the next project and have to contend with my own distractability factor. First draft writing I’m so focused, I’m obssessed. During all of the following processes, I can be distracted by whatever catches my fancy – like replying to your comment instead of editing which I should be doing right now.
I’m WAY ahead on my word count, yet most of it is of good-to-salvageable quality. And even the stuff that’s crap, or the stuff that is blatant padding, has helped me tremendously.
At one point I was COMPLETELY stuck, so I rewrote a chapter in another character’s POV. That character’s perspective unlocked an idea for a viable subplot, which I’m now happily working on. I’m not going to use the actual rewritten chapter in the finished product (although I am absolutely using it for the word count), but it came in handy nonetheless.
I guess what I’m saying is that the pressure to pound out words is good for me.
Thanks RJ -
I’m totally envious of you but glad to hear that you think most of what you’ve written is good quality. Probably already knowing what you were going to write as you got into this helped too, which is what I should have done. But to an extent, I’m glad I went in this first time totally blind and attempting something completely new. It’s definitely been an interesting journey as a writer so far, even though I’m only at 16,000 words now.
Being “behind schedule” is really the only stress factor I’m having right now which is probably the reason so many other writers pour out a lot of “crap” in order to catch up. I guess I just don’t want to do that. I want to attempt to a better first draft than that, but you and I both know that’s not going to happen if I want to get back on track.
And I agree with you and LK both….I definitely spend more time on the editing process.
-Shannon
Oh, and I forgot to add what’s most important…I spend much more time editing than I do writing.
You and me both, Kel.
Shannon,
I’m a slow writer and reader. I’m intrigued more on how you are through the process of writing 14k. I’m wondering if your style has changed in the way you might normally write. Does it at times feel like you are writing newspaper copy, rather than fiction? Is it becoming functional, and when you get a chance to read back over the stuff – it is moving you? Or has some some of the emotion been removed from your writing style?
Mick-
Good questions which I have been pondering myself. As far as style goes, I find that I’m probably moving the story along too quickly by using too much dialogue. My characters are doing a good job of “telling” the story, but not really at “showing” it. And yes, I definitely feel like I’m writing copy (or an essay) at times, just blatantly stating the facts rather than getting the characters involved and connected somehow. I’ll have to fix that during the 2nd draft. I haven’t gone back and read much, just for the fact of trying to push forward, but I still feel like too much of the story is still in my head, so when I go back and have “more time” to myself I’ve got to make those connections.
-Shannon
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When it comes to writing a piece for the sake of word count, every now and then I too take the plunge and challenge myself.
Surely you know the old cliche “A picture is worth a thousand words?” Well, what I do…is put that saying to the test. I choose a picture at random – taken from some internet site I happen to be browsing at the time, a magazine, newspaper, photo album, or whatever. Then, I do the “test myself” thing. Admittedly, I seldom manage the goal of a thousand words; however, this game (as I like to think of it) does compel me to think as much as it does to write.
The challenge is to interpret the image and then to bring those thoughts to life using words. Mostly, the results are junk…but every now and then a tale hits home and “poof” – in less than a nano second – magic.
Paul-
I’ve had a lot of success with that technique when it comes to writing short stories. Usually, I just have a “picture” in mind and like you, I sit down to describe it or write about it, and sometimes the magic does indeed happen and soon I’ve unearthed a wonderful story I didn’t even know I had in me.
Thanks,
Shannon
[...] over a week ago when I posted my NaNoWriMo ramblings on Day 13, you probably would have guessed that I was a lost cause. But being one to never give up, I was [...]