Nano Week 2 - Dull, Dreary, Disasterous... oh and fromage.

What can I say about week 2? Other than thank god it's over....

The second week of Nano always seems to be a problem for me because writing a novel has lost a little of it's luster by then. Your main characters have been introduced, your setting is set and your caffeine reserves are still probably pretty full. Not mine, mind you, because let's be honest, mine are never full. Even if I have a full XL tea, 1 bag in with milk from Tim Horton's in my hand I will still order another one if someone goes on a run to Tim's. To put it another way, people at my Tim Horton's know my name, some of them recognize my voice from thousands of other Burlingtonians and for the rest I have a code word. Yes you heard me correctly, a code word.

It's also the week when your friends stop looking at you with respect and admiration for writing a novel in a month. Instead it's replaced with a peculiar look that I have termed 'mishegoss' (It's a yiddish phrase that means bizzare, confusing or crazy actions). So many people are inordinately confused with the idea of writing a novel in a month and the term crazy is used far too freely for my liking. Thousands of people from all around the world do this every year, so is it really crazy? Who knows. Although for most of the people in my life I want to point out that writing a novel in a month was not the tipping point for me to go from sane to crazy. However, sane people are trusted more than lunatics so I hold my tongue and bide my time.

Week 2 is also full of some pretty boring dialogue, basically the literary equivalent of watching grass grow or paint dry. It's horrible to read and excruciating to write but it's necessary to further the plot along. Even roller coasters need that build up before you're screaming your head off in excitement or perhaps terror. My boring part was a new co-worker being lead around her new place of work, shown her new office and introduced to her new boss. I became so bored writing it that I had the boss throw an impromptu tea party on her desk. I didn't invite the mad hatter but I thought about it seriously for far longer than I want to admit.

Then on Thursday something horrible happened followed by something wonderful on Friday. Thursday night saw me staying up quite late working, at 2am I realized that I was too tired to 1. Shower 2. Write Thursday's 1667 words. So I went to sleep feeling guilty. But as I showered Friday morning I realized that it wasn't that bad, I was only 3334 words behind, which I could easily make up after work by sitting in my Tim Horton's drinking tea after tea until I finished. Instead I started writing at my desk at 5:36pm and I didn't finish until 9:03pm! Not only did I catch up on the words I was behind but I wrote a full day ahead.

Of course if my stomach hadn't been disturbingly vocal I probably would have kept writing for even longer. But it's pretty creepy to be sitting in a silent office listening to your own growling stomach monster, especially when the growls start sounding like words, French words like 'Fromage' and 'BonBon'.

Stay tuned for Week 3 - Finally hitting 25,000 words or 'Yay me, I'm half way done!'

--Heather

My nanowrimo journey continues...

A brief recap - Nanowrimo is national novel writing month. 30 days of literary abandon designed to get you to write a 50,000 word novel. It's free, fun and incredibly challenging.

Week 1 - It's a few days in and I've managed to not only keep up with my daily word goal but surpass it slighty every day. Yesterday for example I wrote a whole extra hundred and fourteen words. Which doesn't seem like a lot, but when you force yourself to write 1667 words every day, any extra that you can stretch out is like icing on your literary cake.

Last year I wrote a novel set in medieval times with sorcerers, dragons, grog and mead. But for this year's literary adventure I decided wanted something a little more modern and since my attention span for non-fiction literature is next to nothing, I started writing a novel about spies. Spies with super powers. :)

It's funny what happens when you start out an on epic writing journey. You excitedly type out the beginning of your novel, everything is new: the characters, setting and even the plot. There's a vague idea or a detailed plan in your head of where everything is going to go, what's going to happen, who's going to die from a mysterious shovel related death and who's going to fall in love. But as you actually start to write it things seem to change randomly without you knowing about it. For instance, last night I had a little epiphany. My main character who's point of view I have been writing from for over 10,000 words is not in fact the centre of my novel universe. Her new friend Temperance is. That little discovery made me want to jump up and down in excitement and cry big salty tears. On the one hand my novel seemed to have new life but on the other I had spent over 10,000 words writing in the wrong direction.

But nanowrimo isn't about going back to the beginning and starting over (thank god), it's about powering on until the end because the only way to get to the end of your novel is through it. So today I'm going to write from Temperance's point of view, flush out her background and maybe put in some interesting dialogue about how she got her special spy code name.

Stay tuned, an update of week 2 is coming soon...

--Heather