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While I’m at a break in tonight’s WriMo’ing I thought it would be a good time to record my thoughts on the writing since last week.
First off, holy interfering characters. I have a some secondary characters that a few days ago were just names floating around, popping in and out, mostly when I needed a crowd or someone to bounce dialogue off. But no, one, cute artistic Joe, keeps showing up and doing some interesting things, while slim and mysterious Bethany ended up being the voice of reason and I so want her around more. It’s like the more control I give up over the story, the more I like what happens. It’s a weird, unconscious act.
Also I’m getting excited for revision. There are already areas I’m itching to go back and rework. I’m not yet because I’m terrified of doing anything to my word count. I feel frustrated with how fast I can’t write. Especially when I get going I just want to jump from event to event, sequence to sequence and I can’t keep up.
I am ahead of the prescribed word count so that’s good, in case I get distracted, which could easily happen. Lots going on this week in the evenings, my preferred WriMo’ing time. Dinner with friends, Adler After Dark, Baby Showers. Crazy times ahead. Crazy awesome.
Inspiration and setting of my NaNo novel
I sort of touched on this yesterday and it had me thinking, far more than usual yes, about dreams. They’re ethereal things, both the night ones and the day one. They seem impossible dreams, yet they inspire such yearning and hope. I take dreaming seriously, I really do. No I don’t believe dreaming about a duck means calamity is ahead or whatever interpretation nonsense says (I totally made up the duck thing). But I believe our dreams tell us something very honest about ourselves. Something that maybe can’t be said out loud or to another person yet. But at what point do dreams become goals? And does that make dreams vulnerable?
A blog I read, Editorial Anonymous, had a post recently where a reader wrote in asking, “Do children’s book editors know that they hold children’s book author’s dreams in their hands?” and the anonymous children’s editor gave a suprising but accurate answer. Editors don’t hold dreams, they hold works. Editors don’t crush dreams with rejection, they reject the work. We crush our own dreams, not the other way around. And how true it that, for so many things in life? Yes, we live in a society and not on a deserted island. People reject us, professionally, personally, emotionally, intellectually. But rejection should not be a crushing defeat. I’ve learned that lesson so many time, yet it’s times like now I need be reminded. Hard work does not always pay off every time. But does that mean stop working? Stop trying or never start?
I’m reminded of a poem, William Bulter Yeats’ He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
I believe our dreams have power but also have limits and this is coming from someone who lives by her dreams and lives for dreaming. It’s my secret world that feeds my real world. And comments like Editorial’s doesn’t endanger that, it makes it stronger. These are my dreams, I believe in them and where they will take me. And I believe I’m strong enough to keep them going in the face of rejection. So dream on, dreamers. But please, don’t crush your dreams. Because no one can dream for you.
I meant to do this on Sunday, Day 7 of NaNoWriMo to create a nice symmetry. An update every week on how the writing went, what I discovered about my story, the characters and maybe myself along the way. And then life over road that plan, like many others.
As of today, Day 12 I’m at 23,102. It’s a big number but the higher it gets the more I’m less worried about it. After I hit 10K which seemed impossible two weeks ago, I’m driven less by the number (and also check it less than every ten minutes and despair) and more by my story. Driven so much that I’m worried I’ll be able to finish by November. Sure I’m on pace to hit 50,000 and win but for me the real win will be completing the story. Not to get all sappy and personal but I need this right now really bad. I need to validate that I can do this, write a novel that has at least some redeeming qualities.
Which is the shock in all this. How much I’ve come to rely on my writing time. In the past I have tried to set aside time each day to simply write, but I never sustained it. Sure I hem and haw and whine that I have to write, but by 30 minutes I’m flying, lost again. And I like what I’m writing. Yeah, my novel’s genre, yeah it’s filled with typos and really bad grammar and far too many adverbs and uneven balance between dialogue and events.
So it leads me to today, where I’m being very mopey and critical of my life so far and wondering what now? When this is done and I have a finished product then what? I plan to revise, of course. I really like what I’ve written and I feel I owe it to Al and Jen, and Lis and Mellie to give them the best I have. But then…can I take the next step? Publish? It seems like a pipe dream. It seems I’m unworthy to even say the word, to even think it. But can I really not try?
So onward and upward…to higher word counts.
