Tuesday, November 8, 2011

NaNoWriMo-ing Progress Update o-rama

I'm participating in NaNoWriMo this year. In case you're unfamiliar, the idea is to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. I've never really been able to participate before because I've always had a show opening in November. Ok, not always, but I think 2003 was the last time I didn't have a show opening in November.

About a month or so ago, I had several ideas swirling around in my head to write about. My main challenge for myself was to write something simple and grounded in reality. I was pretty confident. Then October hit me like a sumo wrestler on energy drinks. I did quite a bit of traveling, and after returning from a business trip to Ireland, I was immediately thrust into the show I was directing that ran in October. (You can read about Fear over on my other blog.) That show consumed pretty much every ounce of creative energy I had, and when it ended, it was suddenly November 1st.

I had nothing. All those ideas I had were either gone or no longer inspired me. I lost a day or two, got behind, panicked, and just started writing. Actually, Diana started writing for me. Sitting next to me on the couch as I sat staring dumbly at a blank Word document, she reached over and typed the word "happy" with auto-correct faithfully capitalized.

So I started with the word "Happy" which became a person's name, because how else do you start a sentence with the word "Happy" any other way without involving quotation marks?

Did I write something simple? Something grounded in reality? Hell now. I'm writing something incredibly complicated that is of course a sci-fi/fantasy.



Still, I'm enjoying the story at least and I want to know where it's going. Or rather I want to know if it's going where I think it's going and I want to see how it gets there.

Then once I get this out of my system, maybe I can focus on something simpler, more grounded in reality, possibly even something non-fiction (which is Diana's suggestion based on how well I write the odd blog post). In any case, I'm significantly behind in my word count, and as I can't seem to average more than 1,000 words a day, I just keep slipping further away. I can get there though! I want to. It's a challenge. Eight days into it I'm at 8,318 words.

Ok, 8,317 once you minus the one that Diana wrote for me.

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In 1789, the governor of Australia granted land and some animals to James Ruse in an experiment to see how long it would take him to support himself. Within 15 months he had become self sufficient. The area is still known as Experiment Farm. This is my Experiment Farm to see how long it will take me to support myself by writing.