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Saturday, November 7, 2015

NaNoWriMo 2015, week 1 thoughts

It's been a week since I started my first National Novel Writing Month, and it's been an interesting experience so far.

First, I want to give props to a trio of inspiring fellow authors: Jamie Davis (the Podmedic), Sam Bradley (@SamBradley11), and B A Wilson (@BAWilsonWrites). Each of them has given a unique insight and inspiration to my efforts, and they deserve credit for reaching out to help a stranger reach his goals.

Second, I'd like to pass on a couple of things I've already learned, based on my experience and the advice of those authors above. Write! Write first. Write a lot. Write without too much concern for the polish, the flow, the "sound" of what you're writing. It can be edited later; in fact, you will almost certainly need to edit it later. It will be really rough. It may even suck. As Jamie told me: "let it suck." For those readers who, like me have a desire to constantly polish and fix things, please hear me echo his advice: don't. Seriously, let it suck, and write a lot of stuff that sucks. Michelangelo touched on this idea, noting "every block of stone has a statue inside it"; write a big block of stone, and only later, go back in and chisel out the story hidden inside. Said another way, by Antoine de Saint ExupĂ©ry, "it seems that perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove." I believe that I will find it easier to remove and polish a lot of sucking writing, and turn it into a finely crafted story, than to try to fix small pieces.

On to the stats:
Average daily words: 2,572.
Largest single day: 01 NOV, with 5,023 words
Total words: 18,010.
Words remaining: 31,990
Estimated finishing date: 20 NOV.




I am aiming to hit at least one more day (probably Monday) of 5k words.

To my fellow NaNoWriMo writers, keep up the good work, and even if you're not as far along as you'd like, you're still farther along than you were!

4 comments:

  1. You got it, Buddy. Your inability to let it suck ... well, Jamie does that better than both of us. I'm glad we made this connection through Jamie and NaNoWriMo and I hope we keep it going after November. There aren't that many EMS authors so we need to stay connected. BTW, very interested in reading your book. The subject touched me deeply. I have a few anthologies on Amazon on my experience as a Ground Zero paramedic. When you have time I'll send you the link.
    Glad you have the blog up!

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    Replies
    1. Same, I'm looking forward to continuing struggling with you and Jamie in the future! :)
      I'm glad you found the book interesting, and I'm eager to read your books as well.

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  2. I love the "Let it suck" advice. This is my first time with NNWM and it's a hard lesson. Keep up the great work!

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