It's amazing how the days get away from you. One minute I'm mostly doing a blog a day, or every other day, the next it suddenly occurs to me I've not done one for three days. Not even thought about it at all.
So it's the twelfth day of November. If I was keeping track of the NaNoWriMo thing I should have 19k of words under my belt. I actually have 12k. Which is so far off the pace it is almost totally unrecoverable in terms of hitting the 50k word count at the end of the month.
The realisation of this month for me has been understanding it's unlikely I'll ever be able to write 50k in thirty days. I can work all day sometimes and have little in actual additional word-count to show for it. Here is an example of why:
Sunday, I spent four hours editing two chapters I'd worked on the day before. You might ask why I was editing and not writing, it is after all NaNoWriMo. The simple answer is everything I write is character centric, if I haven't got their perspective accurate in chapter five, it's not going to feel right in chapter six, seven etc. If I don't take care of the characters viewpoint and world perspective in chapter five, I'll end up increasingly uncertain and go off course. Which will later take a disproportionate amount of time to fix. I might as well get it fixed when I realise it needs fixing and keep subsequent chapters on message and building from a sure platform.
So Sunday, I'm editing these two chapters. One heralds the catalyst for what will be the reveal at the end of the story and therefore needed to say certain things in a certain way. I'd got it written but it was too obvious in leading Daniel to the catalyst. I needed to be roundabout in the reveal and blend the conversation so the reader realises the catalyst a line or two before Daniel does. The other was a conversation between Daniel and another man about their motivations for the upcoming story. The Handyman is a revenge thriller. I'd written the scene but didn't have a valid reason for him being reluctant to embark on the revenge element. I had to make sure he had valid reasons for rejecting the cause but give the reader a clear understanding he will of course eventually get going.
It took a lot of work and I eventually laid it out not as a reluctance to embark on the story but a reluctance to leave the memory of his wife and their life together behind. A very tricky thing to pull off. Four hours of hard work with a total twenty-two words added to the project's overall count.
The next NaNoWriMo word-count update will be Friday 15th, where I should be hitting 24k but will be grateful to be near 20k.
< NaNoWriMo - The Handyman 9 - NaNoWriMo - The Handyman 14 >
So it's the twelfth day of November. If I was keeping track of the NaNoWriMo thing I should have 19k of words under my belt. I actually have 12k. Which is so far off the pace it is almost totally unrecoverable in terms of hitting the 50k word count at the end of the month.
The realisation of this month for me has been understanding it's unlikely I'll ever be able to write 50k in thirty days. I can work all day sometimes and have little in actual additional word-count to show for it. Here is an example of why:
Sunday, I spent four hours editing two chapters I'd worked on the day before. You might ask why I was editing and not writing, it is after all NaNoWriMo. The simple answer is everything I write is character centric, if I haven't got their perspective accurate in chapter five, it's not going to feel right in chapter six, seven etc. If I don't take care of the characters viewpoint and world perspective in chapter five, I'll end up increasingly uncertain and go off course. Which will later take a disproportionate amount of time to fix. I might as well get it fixed when I realise it needs fixing and keep subsequent chapters on message and building from a sure platform.
So Sunday, I'm editing these two chapters. One heralds the catalyst for what will be the reveal at the end of the story and therefore needed to say certain things in a certain way. I'd got it written but it was too obvious in leading Daniel to the catalyst. I needed to be roundabout in the reveal and blend the conversation so the reader realises the catalyst a line or two before Daniel does. The other was a conversation between Daniel and another man about their motivations for the upcoming story. The Handyman is a revenge thriller. I'd written the scene but didn't have a valid reason for him being reluctant to embark on the revenge element. I had to make sure he had valid reasons for rejecting the cause but give the reader a clear understanding he will of course eventually get going.
It took a lot of work and I eventually laid it out not as a reluctance to embark on the story but a reluctance to leave the memory of his wife and their life together behind. A very tricky thing to pull off. Four hours of hard work with a total twenty-two words added to the project's overall count.
The next NaNoWriMo word-count update will be Friday 15th, where I should be hitting 24k but will be grateful to be near 20k.
< NaNoWriMo - The Handyman 9 - NaNoWriMo - The Handyman 14 >
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