NaNoWriMo – Day Fourteen
fig. 1 - Number of sanity points sacrificed this November
Yeah, I know. I should have posted earlier, but I’ve kind of been busy. Writing 36,000 words in a fortnight doesn’t leave much space for sane or rational thought so a lot of stuff gets neglected, but I have to say it’s been very, very rewarding this year.
To be honest, I was worried before NaNoWriMo started this year. I know I always am, but last year was a disaster and a very close call and I felt really, really under-prepared. Much of my first week was spent in research although I still managed to keep the word-count up and I’ve been writing at an average of 2,500 words or so per day. It’s proven to be a nice way of working – I haven’t once breached over 4,000 words in one 24-hour period and I’m not getting as burnt out as I have in previous years. The start was a bit slow and I hit a bad patch around day four, but with a steady stream of caffeine (see fig. 2) and the occasional touch of tequila in the evenings I pushed past the early hang ups (whilst killing my liver) and I’ve been astounded at how easy this thing has been to write.
fig. 2 - Caffeine consumption, day 14 (absent: 1x bottle of V, 2x energy shots)
And sure, there’s probably a lot that is terribly historically inaccurate – as I’ve mentioned, my novel is set in Ancient Rome during Augustus’ reign and until recently I really knew sweet FA about that period. But already with my brief, dilettantish research I’ve found a lot of serendipity that has just blown me away and after the initial awkwardness the characters have really become compelling and a lot of juicy little unplanned details worked their way through which has just reinforced why the hell I do this every year. Sure, the beginning’s not great. I’d like to go back and change the sequencing a little and with my mental blurt on the page there’s a lot of shitty writing there: a little twee at times with plenty of word repetition and too much exposition in dialogue and plenty of tell-not-show, two of my pet hates, but what can you do when you’re spewing it out there like that?. But now I’m into the guts of it the writing is tightening up too and it’s this sort of thing I really live for. I’d really like to make something of this one, and depending on how my enthusiasm still stands at the end of the month when I’m back at work and in the thick of dance rehearsals and costume making, I might keep working on this after the month is over.
Anyway, it’s after midnight now and day 14 is officially over. Time for a half-hour break of something that’s not writing, then I’ll be back into it again. And who says I’m not a sucker for punishment?
