The Great Write Hope

Fifty. Fifty thousand words.

Yes, I'm fricking crazy.

Again.

Still?

Yes, it's probably still.

I'm most likely going to be repeating myself here, but here's the situation. No, not the oompa loompa - I mean MY situation. I want to write. I've always wanted to write. Even when I didn't feel like writing, I still wanted to write. This November, I'm going to write.

I'm taking part in "National Novel Writing Month" (aka, NaNoWriMo), where aspiring writers (and some actual ones) attempt to write FIFTY THOUSAND WORDS over a mere THIRTY DAYS. That's like 2 million fricking words a day... well, it feels like it at times. It's my second venture into the murky NaNo waters, and I'm a little nervous. There's a lot to live up to, especially cause I made it to the finish line last year, I've done more planning this year, and cause I talk a lot of shit to people about how it's not that hard.

Why, though, do NaNo?

Simply, because.

Convinced? No, me either.

I do spend a lot of time trying to get my writing right, when there isn't some alternate deadline attached. Even this sentence, which has taken three hours, feels like it could use some kind of improvement maybe *fix this later*. Some people might call me a perfectionist - I have no idea what they mean nor why they would think that, since I don't condone perfectionism, and some of my friends are perfections.

Okay, I have to stop using that joke.

I do often spend an ungodly amount of time trying to get my words right, which lead to one particular setting of mine being worked on sporadically over an eleven-year period, that ended up being an EIGHTEEN-THOUSAND word outline. YES, OUTLINE DAMNIT. I think I then spent a few weeks writing a first chapter of a mere 500 words using that outline, edited it into a better second-draft, and had a usb stick fricking die on me, meaning all my world-class edits were lost in time. How could I even ATTEMPT to edit that first chapter again, knowing I 'had it right'? Yes, I probably didn't, as time since has shown me, but that's how it felt.

Last year, though, I somehow managed it. I wrote a novel. I wrote it in a month. It was the biggest single piece of writing I've ever done, and it turned out better than I could have hoped for.

Was it perfect? No.

Was it entertaining? N... actually yes! It was.

It was raw, rough around the edges yes, but it had heart. Yes I repeated myself at times, cause it was raw - a little rough around the edges. It's stuff I didn't realise when I was writing, but could see it in editing. Sometimes even the editing was a little rough around the edges... raw.

The miniscule amount of editing I've done on last year's piece though, has opened my eyes a little more. Yes, what I wrote first up was good. When I first read it, I had a mini-cringe, but came to love it. Then I edited. My second draft felt like a revelation... I had unearthed the diamond, and it was now polished and shiny. NOTHING COULD COMPARE ohwait, I read it again. Oh, there's a typo. Oh, that word is used a bit much. Hey, that line is awkward. So on.. so on...

Obviously it could go on indefinitely, but it was a comfort. I might get it right the first time. I might make it righter the second. I could no doubt improve it at every stage, and thinking that I could have it right from the very start was just... stupid. So, given that I've done a fair amount of planning (far more than last year), that realisation has come at exactly the right time.

You needn't think you'll just be writing unfiltered crap. You will be writing unfiltered crap. However hidden in there will be specks of imagination of the rarest sort that must be extracted. You will find serendipitous outcomes. Your characters will not only do things you don't want them to, but that you don't expect them to. You will be sucked into a world every bit as real and engrossing as any you have ever read, and you will feel like the passenger on this tumultuous trip rather than the pilot.

All you have to do is try.