HELLO BLOG WORLD!
So this is my first year participating in NaNoWriMo, or “National Novel Writing Month,” the month of my birth, November.
This is mainly because I had never heard of it before this year; I thankfully noticed a VERY casual mention in a magazine sometime in mid-October, and decided that it was the perfect time to complete the first book of my Theater Door series.
For anyone following along (which I don’t think there are many), I’ve been working on this Theater Door series for a little while: setting up a platform, brainstorming character ideas, brainstorming possible adventures for them to share…. I’ve done a lot of stuff EXCEPT writing the first book. So I’ve used this November as an excuse to start.
AND IT’S BEEN INTERESTING.
First of all, daily life doesn’t end. And professionally, I teach. I perform. These schedules are challenging enough to juggle alone, not to mention adding a 1600-word-a-day writing quota.
I’m so used to the collaborative art of theater; while I’ve written a number of projects for students (or myself and other actors) to perform, “the lone process” of the writing always has been grounded in a responsibility to the actors AND endowed with the flexibility to tweak the script to accommodate unforeseen changes. A novel is a far more lonesome venture. And everything I’ve been planning theoretically up until now is… sort of helping but in a lot of ways getting thrown in the mulch pile.
“Just writing” is the hardest part. First of all, this first book is very heavily grounded in the Roman comedies of Plautus, so there’s been a need to throw in some research time here and there. So whereas I know I need to dedicate time to just-getting-words-on-the-page, I also want the words to be appropriate and proper for the ultimate storyline.
Call me a perfectionist; I actually think I’ve learned to repress a large amount of my perfectionist tendencies. Sometimes details need to be glossed over in order to complete the larger tasks at hand. Plus, I realize that sometimes certain experiences are more about the process than the final product. And “process” is almost always “perfect.”
Anyhow, I’m just procrastinating from my current task at hand: finishing my last 1,000 words for the night. (Plus, tomorrow I have a 10am-10pm commitment schedule, so I was trying to get a jump tonight on tomorrow’s quota).
If you haven’t taken part in a NaNoWriMo but have the urge to do so, DO IT. It really is an interesting experience. And far more potent as a direct experience, not an adage from someone else.
1600 words, here I come!
PS, facilius est multa facere quam diu. Just sayin’.
Erika Diane 