I'm going to participate in nanowrimo this year (national novel writing month). So, I'm going to write a 50,000 word (or so) novel by the end of November. Officially you're not supposed to start writing until November, but I'm not going to be strict about that. I've started writing/ planning my novel already. I gave it a name /// which has nothing to do with anything - I don't even know what my novel's going to be about yet, so how could I give it an appropriate title...so it's just a word. I've registered on the website and I think you're meant to actually write the novel on the website, and it's like a competition and someone wins and you get recognised for participation, but I'm not that worried about that part of it. I'm pretty sure I'm just going to write it as a word document. I'm more keen about doing the thing than all the peripheral stuff around it....but we'll see....it might be fun to participate in a more official way.
The idea of writing a novel - not to mention, writing it in a month! - has always been daunting for me. I should mention that nanowrimo actually allows for other forms as well...so I could have chosen a form I feel more comfortable with, but I decided I want to write a novel, although it may not be a very conventional type of novel...it might break a lot of the rules and might not even be recognisable as a novel. but about the challenge...I'm going to approach it like I approached inktober a couple of years ago. Because I can't draw, the idea of producing an ink illustration every day for a month was quite daunting. but what I did was that I found a lot of very easy tutorials on youtube (that were really meant for kids) and just did one each day. I would get a drawing done each day in about 5 or 10 minutes. The results were not great works of art, but they weren't too bad at the same time. They were better than anything I could draw just from my imagination. I drew different cartoon characters, animals, plants....all kind of cartoony, not realistic.
so, with nanowrimo I'm going to take a similar approach - not necessarily by watching youtube videos (though maybe I will....) \\\ I will write in a way that's easy for me....I'm not going to think of it as writing a proper literary novel....it's going to be more like 50,000 words of stuff that is funny or interesting or weird or [fill in adjective].
To complete the 50K, you have to write 1.5K a day ||| but of course that presumes you don't start writing until November.....still, even with the extra time I have, it means writing quite a lot each day. but I know that, if I write in a different way to how I normally write, it won't be that hard to meet the goal. I always think too much and read what I've already written over and over - I have a very strong inner censor. So, writing more means turning that censor off. It's kind of about caring less, actually. and key to that is that I'm not necessarily going to share what I write...though I would like to....I might even publish it, or it could be the first draft of something I will develop into something I will publish. but yeah, my focus will be on getting the words done, and less on writing well.
No comments:
Post a Comment