The Oddest Thing

I love and hate Nanowrimo at the same time.

The impetus that drives me to try and finish is like nothing I've experienced before. I've made a million promises to freaking get 50k. Of real word count. It's both exhilarating and headache-making. I'll never have found this desperation of purpose on my own, for sure.

I've only written this much once before. The 36k EarthRealms "quest" story with a totally lame main character, and some fun (but very cariactured) side characters, padded with lots of obscene action sequences (when in doubt, throw in someone to attack them!) and messed around with heaps of horrible cliches before realizing I was getting nowhere and the whole thing was too cartoonish, in a teenager immature sort of way.

The good news is that I just crossed 25k of real wordage. (Even if the damn Nanowrimo word-counter ATE 200 of my words. Open Office counts more generously.)

And there appears to be a seriously intense story buried in there, in between the lame descriptions and flailing exposition. I like most of the dialogue at any rate.

Even if the character I started out with appears to have gotten shunted off to the side in favor of someone else. Oh well. The good thing about playing around with three strong women is that they are all great narrators if I manage to find the right scene to throw them into.

Unfortunately, the part that I hate about Nanowrimo is the despair I'm feeling at seeing sooooo many people rushing ahead of me, and sooooo many people on schedule. Which I'm not. I'm...hey, five days late, exactly.

Crap. Didn't gain any. But bright side, didn't quite lose any either. I don't think. :(

It took me 20 days and about 95% of all my buried creativity to struggle to 25k words. How am I supposed to do it drained of all reserves (including sleep) in half that time to get 50k words?

Gods. I can't. Today I got 800 words after 2 hours of struggle. The good news is that it's a surprisingly meaningful 800 words, that took a turn I hadn't quite envisioned but rolls me back onto some semblance of a plot wagon.

The speed of my writing is dropping. I need free days desperately. I wonder how much leave I can beg off with what remains of November? I'm tempted to say that I need the whole damn week and next. But I don't think they'll let me go. :P