Um, hi.

I wrote a novel.

In one month.

Oh my god.

nov. 20th

I've officially written more of this story than anything else in my entire life.

Forty thousand and two words, approx. 73 pages---any way you want to put it, this is more than I've EVER done before.

My closest nanowrimo attempt reached 40,000 words at something like 11PM on the 30th. It was nowhere near the end of the story---I'd barely even gotten to the beginning!---and there was no way I was going to finish it.

And now here I am, ten days from the end of the month and with only ten thousand words left to write, officially.

Of course, just like before, I'm nowhere NEAR the end. I guess old habits die hard. *grin* This also MIGHT have something to do with the fact that I JUST figured out that this story is actually a trilogy, and not one book. (Thanks a lot for giving me the heads up on that one, Siarl! I never expected the Fens to become such a huge part of the story!) This time, though, I really want to finish. And I'm just going to write through the years that will eventually be the second book in maybe five pages, and get to the important bits. I don't have enough time to properly finish it, but I'm going to finish it somehow.

That's going to be the hardest thing for me---I hate cutting things down, and there are so many character relationships I want to develop in that period. But you know what? I'm writing a novel in a month. This is a rough draft, and it's not going to be perfect---so I'm just going to make myself shut up and write at least a bare bones version of the ending. I can edit it later; I will edit it later. But dammit, I am going to finish this thing. This year I am going to do it.

And you know what? I'm completely and totally in love with my story. For once I am writing a story for myself first---and the writing is awful, truly terrible, and filled with dreadful cliches and I'm just itching to sit down with it properly and fix it, but---I'm crazy for this story and I can't wait to find out what happens. And in between all the gross bits there are some beautiful lines and characters that I love beyond reason.

I'm a writer, and for god's sake, nothing I ever do will be perfect---but this imperfection right here feels perfect enough to me, right now, and I'm really happy.

And wasn't THAT a cheesy line. :)

Edit: lolol the first time I typed this I wrote "nothing I ever do will be prefect". Ahaha irony.

NaNoWriMo!

Yes, it's that time again!

What time, Zaz? I hear you chant. (Okay, bear with me here, I'm having a good day.)

It's time to try and write a 50,000 word novel in one month again!

Oh yes, I am crazy. My first year of college and WHAT am I doing? Trying to write a novel, during November, which inevitably ends up being the busiest month of my year. Guess what I've got next week? A MIDTERM! YAYYY!

But I love November, I honestly do. It's exciting, somehow. It feels like a month of new beginnings, a time to try things. If I fail, at least I've gone for something, you know? At least I'm not just sitting out my life doing absolutely nothing.

And, for once, I'm ahead of schedule! I want to be cautious about this, but it feels so good to be actually where I wanted to be at this point. 11943 words! I just wanted to be at ten thousand today, and I'm almost at twelve, even though I'm violating the technical rules by working on something I've "started", if 189 words counts as a start. But I'm (obviously) not counting those words towards my final count, and as the reason stated for that rule is "we don't want you starting anything where you're too attached to the characters", I don't really see it as violating it at its heart, since I started without feeling too much attachment to the characters, and they've already changed a bunch of times. Plus, the ideas attached to those 189 words were just things I loved too much not to try. It's something I'm really just writing for myself, and it's making me happy.

Of course, there will be BAD days. This I know; I've learned by now that writing is not something that just happens smoothly and easily (even if it may feel like that right now). There will inevitably be that one day where I break down and go, "all right, that's it, this novel sucks and I am a terrible writer." But this time, instead of trying afterwards to pick it up with brilliance again, I'm going to try and just write some CRAP and get beyond that point and finish.

We'll see what happens, and you, faithful readers of this blog---by which I mean maybe 1.5 people---will get to hear all about it!

So right now I'm just feeling good about it. My character's shifting a bit and I'm having tense problems and it's WAY too wordy, but wonderful things are happening on a very, very small scale. And I have high hopes for finishing this one. Bet you this---it's not even cockiness, but this satisfaction---will come back to bite me in the ass soon enough, but now? I feel good.