writing on writing

by Anna Maria Hansen

October 30, 2013
Well, do you think I waited long enough to get going on this? No plot, no definite characters, no real idea where I'm headed... only that I want to laugh. I must be crazy.

That is the first entry from my NaNo journal. Yes, in addition to cranking out 50k, I also like to keep a writing journal that I update every day with word count, story ideas, thoughts, brainstorming, etc. It's a handy way for me to keep track of where I'm going in the brain-frying pace of NaNo.

I was expecting to be utterly overwhelmed by NaNo. I thought it was one short step away from impossible. In truth, it wasn't bad at all. Rather...

November 2, 2013
...it's amazing to be writing again. Creating.

That was a good surprise. The pace was quite do-able. I also allowed myself to have a few days when I went way below the required 1,667 daily words. It's a give and take. Some days, I churned out 3,000 words, some days 500. This time, I also allowed myself to go the full NaNo, and not push myself to finish a week early.


November 20, 2013
I just realized something. (This is the hilarious part of NaNo-ing; in the rush of writing you forget the most blatant things.) I'm writing a mystery... that doesn't have any really good suspects. Time for some re-thinking!

Keeping the journal lets you look at the progress of the story. As a writer, you are so busy trying to show (don't tell!), that things can go right over your head. Writing them down helps me to keep track of where I was going with a scene, with a line of dialogue, with a fragment of description -- without bogging down the actual story. Later, on revisions, I can go back and see if my "show" is understandable, or if I need to develop it more.


November 28, 2013
So many ideas! Revisions, re-writes, edits, additions, plot twists... just finishing the 50k, wouldja?!

Now that November is over, I am giving myself a week off of writing, and then diving back in to hopefully get a rough first draft of my yet-unnamed novel finished by the first of the New Year. No rest for the weary...

November 30, 2013
DONE!