January 1-7, 2005: In The Beginning

My computer's not set yet and there are people sleeping off last ngiht's effects (including the fireworks that my neighbors set off after midnight). At least I'm set to write Monday (if not tomorrow night), having promised myself that I would write a minimum of one thousand words towards the novel this week (at 200 words per day from Monday to Friday).

Why plan for days off from writing?

I did the same thing during National Novel Writing Month last year, only that was 2500 words per day, Monday through Friday. I think that's part of what helped me get through the month, even with my computer problems: planning for days off gave me room to catch up in I fell behind, I knew exactly what I needed to do to move on with my novel.

Even if you can't count on a fully regular schedule, you can count on knowing just how much you have to make up and maybe even in odd moments write a little ahead.

It might be a good idea to carry a small notepad around in your pocket too. Even if you're not an outliner you can take a few minutes to decide what you want to do when you next sit down and write. Sometimes an outline can help you think, even if you write something completely different from it. Even drawing a picture can help you visualize the action yo want to show folks.

I, too, have notebooks everywhere. I haven't used a napkin since my college days, but I know that many writers do (having seen that tidbit in a few places).

One of the things I had in mind when starting this was flexibility. A lot of people give up pretty early because the pace of a BIAW (that's "Book in a Week", which I tried) and NaNoWriMo (where I wrote about 40k more of a book that I started one BIAW) is a bit too mcuh for any sane person (i.e, one who has a life). ;-)

I did cut quite a bit of that initial 10k words because I decided to go with a character who died in that initial 10k words. That's the perils of critique when you haven't done writing: you tend to rethink the whole story.

This is just a bit of encouragement from yours truly. ;-) We're all in this together, so let's do our best!




Regards,
Elizabeth Anne Ensley.