Blog Post #3 - Immediate Thoughts on Writing

I'm a couple of days in to the frantic month that is Camp Nanowrimo. Since I've set a pretty high word count for myself (aiming for 100'000 by July 31st), I've been breaking up my writing time into three hour long chunks. So far so good, though I'm not going to start polishing that winners trophy just yet.

Now that I have a rather high word count goal, twice that of my usual Nanowrimo attempts, I’ve found that quite a few challenges are rearing their ugly heads earlier in the process than they typically have in the past. I thought I’d take a moment to break them down, in the hopes that naming and shaming them can help me combat them and push through to newer (and most likely more difficult) challenges that lie ahead.

I'M NOT WRITING ENOUGH

This one is a doozy. I’m what they call a ‘planner’, not a ‘pantser’. I’ve spent the last couple of months working on my outline, drafting the action, making notes on the different characters emotions and each action/reaction within the scene. Now that Camp has commenced, all I have to do is turn these pages and pages of notes into actual story. So, when a scene that took up roughly 2000 words to describe comes out just shy of 400, I start to get a little freaked out.

Solutions: Ignore the scene length! I’ll be taking the writing advice that most writers seem to provide, and push forward regardless. Expanding on the novel is what the second draft is for, this is all about getting it out into the world, a big misshapen blob of clay, and coming back later. When I reach the end of the scene just halfway through a 1000 word sprint, I’m just swallowing down the screaming voices, ignoring the plethora of notes I’ve taken and moving on to the next scene. It can all be added in later. I hope.

I'M WRITING TOO MUCH

A couple of times, I’ve encountered the opposite of the above problem. This usually happens when I come back to writing after a few hours of doing something else. I’ll start by saying something, then repeat it several times, trying to say it just right. All I end up doing is repeating it. The urge to go back and delete the meaningless paragraph and focusing on getting it right the first time can be pretty overwhelming. 

Solutions: Kill the inner editor! Not only am I trying really, really hard not to read anything that I’ve written, I’m also refusing to delete a word of it. Not because I’m trying to cheat at my word count, but I’m trying to show myself that rough drafts are just that - rough. Somewhere in this giant messy lump of clay will be a great looking sculpture. The same way I can add things in later, I can cut a whole lot out too. Besides, somewhere in that bout of word diarrhea is the perfect sentence. I just don’t know which bit it is yet.

I'M WATCHING THE CLOCK

Or specifically, the word count. When I start to flag with a scene, I find myself focusing on watching the words climbing, rather than what those words should be. This is a bit of a trap for planners - when a scene in your head doesn’t come out the way you wanted it to, and the whole thing feels forced, it becomes a chore, rather than a joy. It’s a little bit ‘kill your darlings’, except his is more realising they might have to be nipped in the bud before they see the light of day.

Solutions: Drop it and run. If a scene isn’t doing it for me, then I’m going to be plowing through it like a bull at a gate, trying to get to the other side so I can keep going. Sometimes scenes need reworking, or changing later on. Some of them I might even cut completely, and replace with something more interesting. Instead of trying to force them to work, I’m letting them drift in an embryonic state, and focusing on what does get my inspiration flowing. There will be plenty of time to focus on that scene later*. Onward and upward.

I’ll try to share other things as I encounter them, anyone else out there Camping this month? What have been your biggest hurdles so far?

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* I have no idea what I’m going to do if the entire plot hits this particular snag. I am adamantly not thinking about this possible scenario.