Word count: 27628
I gave into temptation this week. I was stuck on my story and, instead of plugging away with a writing exercise or even stepping outside for a breath of fresh air and change of scenery, I printed out what I’d written so far and started to read it. I even started to edit some of it. Because a lot of it is pretty bad.
Do not do this.
We all know by now that the point of NaNoWriMo is to get the words and ideas out quickly, and that this means quite a bit of the output will be bad, even unreadable. It’s one thing to know that and another thing to be confronted with how bad the bad can be. That can lead to discouragement. The kind of discouragement that makes you wonder why you’re even bothering with this. Especially when, like me, your eventual hope for your novel is publication.
The good news is that although the bad parts are horrible – clunky exposition, dialogue that goes nowhere, descriptions of characters and places that change from one chapter to another – there’s more good than bad. And even the bad will be a place to start. I’ll have time for editing and rewriting, and editing and rewriting some more, in the months to come. But right now I need to get the first draft out. Because I can’t edit a blank page.
Sing it sista!