the day one experience
Day 1
Total Word Count: 5704
Percent Complete: 11%
Today is kick-off day for NaNoWriMo!
Though I'd considered staying up late last night to begin writing at the stroke of midnight, I ended up in bed around 10:30pm, hoping for a good night's sleep so I could begin in earnest this morning. Of course, I ended up dreaming that my little tabby cat was using a small scythe to try to insert flat and uninteresting characters into my story.... When I saw him this morning, snoozing on my pillow, I told him to back off.
I fell into my usual routine of general procrastination this morning, but then got my butt in the chair and started writing. Surprisingly, it wasn't even 7am yet. I was sure that it would take hours to reach my daily quota of 1667 words, but I was shocked to find that I was nearly there a mere 45 minutes later. Huh?
I'm lucky in that I'm a freelancer-type with not much on the schedule for the month of November, so I kept at it. Just as I was beginning to think about lunch, a neighbor showed up on my doorstep with fresh, homemade split pea soup. Not even letting me get the door all the way open, she handed me the container and said, "It's hot. Take this upstairs with you right now. Keep writing!" Then she ran off in the rain. That was a happy surprise. It was incredibly good soup, too.
Though I kept writing, I took some decent breaks during the day -- I even took a nap with the plot-busting cat, and later went on a 4-mile "urban hike." I grilled up a sausage in my new George Foreman grill and caught an episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." While the afternoon's work didn't match the same level of focus or output as those early morning hours, I still managed a word count of 5704 today.
I am astonished.
Can I keep up this pace? I doubt it, but if I did, I'd be done with my 50,000 words next Monday. Then I could hammer out three more 50,000-word novels before November 30th. Ha! I don't think so.
Tomorrow, I imagine I'll be watching the election returns more than I'll be writing, but you never know. I feel good after today's effort. I'd love to keep at it this evening, but I just don't have the energy. Pacing myself has never been my strong suit, but I've also never written a book this way before, and it's going well so far.
I'll be starting Chapter 4 when I next sit down to work on Witches' Brew. Is this my best writing? Hardly. I can usually put together something pretty good even when I'm half asleep, but this isn't even at that level quite yet. But that's the point of the exercise, to generally write crap while working to simply get the story on the computer screen. I don't think that first chapter was so god-awful, however, so I might consider posting that.
Or maybe I'll just stick to the commentary. ;)
Total Word Count: 5704
Percent Complete: 11%
Today is kick-off day for NaNoWriMo!
Though I'd considered staying up late last night to begin writing at the stroke of midnight, I ended up in bed around 10:30pm, hoping for a good night's sleep so I could begin in earnest this morning. Of course, I ended up dreaming that my little tabby cat was using a small scythe to try to insert flat and uninteresting characters into my story.... When I saw him this morning, snoozing on my pillow, I told him to back off.
I fell into my usual routine of general procrastination this morning, but then got my butt in the chair and started writing. Surprisingly, it wasn't even 7am yet. I was sure that it would take hours to reach my daily quota of 1667 words, but I was shocked to find that I was nearly there a mere 45 minutes later. Huh?
I'm lucky in that I'm a freelancer-type with not much on the schedule for the month of November, so I kept at it. Just as I was beginning to think about lunch, a neighbor showed up on my doorstep with fresh, homemade split pea soup. Not even letting me get the door all the way open, she handed me the container and said, "It's hot. Take this upstairs with you right now. Keep writing!" Then she ran off in the rain. That was a happy surprise. It was incredibly good soup, too.
Though I kept writing, I took some decent breaks during the day -- I even took a nap with the plot-busting cat, and later went on a 4-mile "urban hike." I grilled up a sausage in my new George Foreman grill and caught an episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." While the afternoon's work didn't match the same level of focus or output as those early morning hours, I still managed a word count of 5704 today.
I am astonished.
Can I keep up this pace? I doubt it, but if I did, I'd be done with my 50,000 words next Monday. Then I could hammer out three more 50,000-word novels before November 30th. Ha! I don't think so.
Tomorrow, I imagine I'll be watching the election returns more than I'll be writing, but you never know. I feel good after today's effort. I'd love to keep at it this evening, but I just don't have the energy. Pacing myself has never been my strong suit, but I've also never written a book this way before, and it's going well so far.
I'll be starting Chapter 4 when I next sit down to work on Witches' Brew. Is this my best writing? Hardly. I can usually put together something pretty good even when I'm half asleep, but this isn't even at that level quite yet. But that's the point of the exercise, to generally write crap while working to simply get the story on the computer screen. I don't think that first chapter was so god-awful, however, so I might consider posting that.
Or maybe I'll just stick to the commentary. ;)
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