More on the Novel-in-Progress, DeCo

My regular readers probably know this already, but the novel I struggled to write before AnNoWriMo, RITN, is on hold until I finish a draft of DeCo.

It’s funny that when I would sit down to write RITN, I thought of DeCo. The reverse isn’t happening while working on DeCo. Perhaps RITN doesn’t matter as much to me.

The basic premise of DeCo developed in 2006 (almost two years before I dreamt the RITN characters) as a “personal story” used to ward off boredom on my walks to and from work. At that time, I didn’t think of myself as a writer and refused to write more than a paragraph summary of the story.

Over the years, the characters have grown until there’s little room left in my head to contain them. They need to live on paper instead. And they’re much pushier than the RITN characters.

During AnNoWriMo, I enjoyed updating the status bar, so I’m going to include my draft’s status with posts (as below).

Notice, though, that the goal has changed from 60,000 words to 75,000 words–my projected rough estimate of the finished draft. Both numbers represent actual words, not number of pages divided by 250.

Current Draft

26,000 of 75,000 words (35%)

AnNoWriMo and Life

Sometimes, basic life activities are good for creative projects. The mind relaxes, new concepts connect with older concepts, and enthusiasm is restored.

Other times, activities like cleaning, cooking, and completing paperwork for money simply distract from the project.

This is Thanksgiving week here in the U.S.A. A few guests will be staying in my house, which wasn’t designed for sleepovers. I’m trying to compensate in the cleaning. On Wednesday and Thursday, the required cooking and entertaining will certainly keep me from writing much, unless I forfeit sleep.

Regardless of the holiday, I still need to apply to jobs. The good news: More jobs are opening up in my area. Though not as many as I’d expected for this time of year, last week’s postings were enough to keep me busy. I’d like to apply to several more jobs this week. The not-so-good news is that already sparse amount of writing time.

For that reason, I needed a high word count by the end of AnNoWriMo Week Three. Instead, I’m more behind than at the start of the previous two weeks. At the time of this post’s publication, my count was about 18,600 words.

As you could probably guess, Week Three wasn’t as much fun as Week Two.

Last week, I allowed a concern for details to slow my progress. In addition to reading through everything I’ve already written and making line edits (both of which are time wasters during AnNoWriMo), I also blocked the writing flow for short periods by focusing on what I don’t know (for example, military procedures). My current draft is scattered with filler terms and vague descriptions of unwritten scenes.

The filler terms I’ll have to live with until late December or January. Unfortunately, I can’t ignore the scene fillers. To catch up my word count, I need to write those scenes using imagination and the little knowledge I currently possess.

~ ~ ~

Do you ever wish you could disconnect from daily life–as in, travel to a secluded place outside of normal space-time? What would you work on if you could?

For writers who celebrate Thanksgiving Day, do you expect the holiday to affect your current project(s)?

Review of AnNoWriMo: Week One

Out of necessity, I wrote for AnNoWriMo on Saturday and Sunday, originally scheduled as days off. The roughly 3,000 words I wrote over the weekend weren’t enough to catch me up. On this Monday morning, I should be at 10,000 words, twice my current word count.

I’m not worried, though. There are 12 buffer days–Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays (Veteran’s Day and Thanksgiving)–remaining in AnNoWriMo.

By Monday, November 16, I would like to be on-target with 20,000 words. My goal for each “work day” would be 2,000 words if I were on-target with the first week’s 10,000 words. To accomplish the second week’s goal, I’ll need to average 3,000 words (roughly equivalent to 12 pages!) each work day or a little over 2,000 words (8.5 pages) each calendar day.

According to my outline, this week will cover scenes already familiar to me. I’ve written a version of some of these scenes before. The others I’ve envisioned enough times that I expect I can write them with little thought. That’s another reason not to worry about being behind on my word count, I guess. The scenes I’ll be writing while catching up won’t be overly difficult.

Of course, I’m fighting the habit to edit as I write. I deleted entire paragraphs before remembering the NaNoWriMo technique of striking out intolerable text to preserve a word count. There are other NaNoWriMo cheats techniques I’m not entirely comfortable using:

• avoiding contractions (e.g., typing “do not” instead of “don’t”)
• writing in a wordier style (e.g., “took without first gaining permission that which he would have purchased if he had previously come to possess the money” instead of “he stole”)
• unnecessarily repeating information (e.g., “She told him not to go. Really, she insisted. ’Don’t go,’ she insisted. ‘I don’t want you to go.’ He heard that she didn’t want him to go.”)

A high word count simply isn’t worth the risk of developing bad habits. Could you imagine the cleanup this winter if I consistently used the above techniques in AnNoWriMo?