Quantum Storytelling

Woke up at 7AM, an hour before my alarm. I must be excited for NaNo. I busted out a quick 572 words before I had to start getting ready for work. The other 1100+ will have to wait until tonight. I’m so into this. I’m loving this year’s new widget graphs and progress report. For those that don’t know, it’s that graph to the right. I’m curious to see how this plays out over the next 30 days. I think I’m going to save out my progress reports just as a momento to look back on. Fun times!

I didn’t finish my outline, but it’s much more solid than last year’s. And having been through the process, I feel a lot more confident because I can anticipate certain problems and pitfalls. Here are a few:

• Day 15 or so is hard. You’ve come a long way, but even if you’re on target with your word count you still have to take what seems like a massive 25K words and double it.
• Missing a day or two, or falling behind in your count. I fell behind a couple times last year by skipping a day or two here and there. It increased my worry, in addition to some self-scolding. Two things I didn’t need and only detracted from kicking butt. The times I fell behind also tempted my closet pessimist to say, “I’m behind. Why bother finishing now?” For me thoughts like those are brief. I usually squash them immediately. But to be honest I’d rather not have thoughts like that at all. Falling behind only encourages thoughts like that.
• Hitting a blank part of the story that your outline/plot doesn’t cover. It’s easy to stress over The Nothing. Don’t. Try to come up with 5 or so ideas to elaborate on. Then pick one. In the absence of brilliant ideas, anything will do… for now. Remember that this is only temporary.
• The thing you create during NaNo is a first draft. Remember it. Don’t be too harsh on yourself. Don’t freak out. Don’t be down on yourself because the work isn’t good enough. It’s a first, rough draft. With anything you do and any thoughts in mind, don’t forget it.

All that said, for me nothing captures the energy and excitement of the organized push. Once you find a momentum things start to snowball. Ideas fly. Thoughts gel. Everything grooves. There’s nothing like it.

Are you feeling it yet?