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NaNoWriMo update
Nov. 19th, 2019 06:51 amI participated in NaNoWriMo again this year. After last year's efforts resulted in my first novel, I have continued to write in the year following (as you will know if you read this journal faithfully), and this month I was faced with writing my fifth.
I hit the 50K word count on Nov. 10, which memory told me was faster than I managed it last year. Memory was, in fact, mistaken, because when I look thru last year's archive, I see that I hit the 50K on Nov. 7 last year. Ah well. This time, I went on to write almost 15K more on Nov. 11 to complete the novel. [And never again will I cram that much into one day! I woke the next morning with aching hands and arms, and sandy eyes. Why subject myself to that when it isn't necessary? I just got so caught up in the rush of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.] Since then, I have read through it three times to proofread and make tiny tweaks. In any case, well ahead of the Nov. 30 deadline -- in both cases, I attribute my speed to preparing an extremely thorough outline beforehand.
As I sit here now, I'm not sure how I feel about these books. Ambivalent. They all sound like I wrote them. They are all part of a series of sorts, so I suppose a consistency of tone is a good thing. But I'm wondering if what I actually have is a consistency of voice, or a sameyness that could become a rut, if it hasn't already. On the other hand, I can't see myself writing something wildly different next time just because I feel I somehow owe it to someone, if it isn't the book I actually have in me. So far, I've been writing what I want, because I want. I'm making no effort to court a mass audience. I realize that no book is for everyone, and my books certainly aren't for everyone. And I eventually realized that all I'm hoping for is that I can find the people my books are for, without being particularly worried about how many of those folks there might be. If I can please five or six readers on a regular basis, I can be happy with that. As long as I am one of them, and so far I am. I do like my own books, and if someone else had written them, I would still like them. I guess that's the most important thing.
I also wonder if the fact that I don't concern myself with earning anything from them, or achieving what is normally understood to be success with them, makes me a dilettante. If so, I can live with that.
I hit the 50K word count on Nov. 10, which memory told me was faster than I managed it last year. Memory was, in fact, mistaken, because when I look thru last year's archive, I see that I hit the 50K on Nov. 7 last year. Ah well. This time, I went on to write almost 15K more on Nov. 11 to complete the novel. [And never again will I cram that much into one day! I woke the next morning with aching hands and arms, and sandy eyes. Why subject myself to that when it isn't necessary? I just got so caught up in the rush of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.] Since then, I have read through it three times to proofread and make tiny tweaks. In any case, well ahead of the Nov. 30 deadline -- in both cases, I attribute my speed to preparing an extremely thorough outline beforehand.
As I sit here now, I'm not sure how I feel about these books. Ambivalent. They all sound like I wrote them. They are all part of a series of sorts, so I suppose a consistency of tone is a good thing. But I'm wondering if what I actually have is a consistency of voice, or a sameyness that could become a rut, if it hasn't already. On the other hand, I can't see myself writing something wildly different next time just because I feel I somehow owe it to someone, if it isn't the book I actually have in me. So far, I've been writing what I want, because I want. I'm making no effort to court a mass audience. I realize that no book is for everyone, and my books certainly aren't for everyone. And I eventually realized that all I'm hoping for is that I can find the people my books are for, without being particularly worried about how many of those folks there might be. If I can please five or six readers on a regular basis, I can be happy with that. As long as I am one of them, and so far I am. I do like my own books, and if someone else had written them, I would still like them. I guess that's the most important thing.
I also wonder if the fact that I don't concern myself with earning anything from them, or achieving what is normally understood to be success with them, makes me a dilettante. If so, I can live with that.
