Keller’s NaNoWriMo Korner: NaNoWriGo With The Flow

Current word count: 22602

You may remember that I started NaNoWriMo “armed with nothing more than two vaguely sketched main characters, a setting, and a boatload of coffee.” It turns out one of my characters was a little less sketched than I thought.

I started out with a Kara, a woman recently out of rehab, and Willard Harvey (Kara calls him Harvey), a guy who owns a comic book store. I wasn’t exactly sure what their relationship was going to be, only that it was going to stay platonic. At around the 15,000 word mark, I realized that the relationship between these two characters would would work better if Willard was a woman. Firstly because I decided he would be Kara’s AA sponsor, and opposite sex sponsorships are generally frowned upon. Secondly, I think the character dynamic is better this way. So Willard Harvey is now a woman named Winifred Harvey. She still owns a comic book store. And Kara still calls her Harvey.

In spite of that fairly monumental change – or perhaps because of it – the writing is flowing along well. I’ve got a cast of secondary characters fleshed out and the story sometimes feels like it’s writing itself. The downside to finding myself so immersed in the story is that I’ve been neglecting certain important aspects of my real-life. For example, it’s 1:30 on Monday afternoon and I’m still wearing my pajamas. I have the worst case of bed head mankind has ever seen, the sink is overflowing with dishes, and the only food I’ve consumed is a candy bar and four cups of coffee. My only consolation is that my protagonist’s life is a bigger mess than my kitchen. At least she’s showered today. But when the words are flowing, you gotta go with it.