beginning

I've written around 1,000 words or so of my novel, which is not too bad. It's day 2 of nanowrimo, so, to be on track, I should have written 3,000 words, but 1,000 words is more than I've ever written of a novel draft. 

Something occurred to me as I was writing today, about the way the process of writing has changed dramatically since as recently as the 1980s. \\ because, one of the things I did was to go back to parts I'd already written and add to them. With word processing, writing needn't be a linear process any more. In theory I could develop my novel by expanding on various paragraphs that I've already written. I don't have to pick up from where I left off. 

and this makes a big difference to someone like me because I'm always rehearsing conversations and writing projects - going over and over them in my head. 

I was just looking at The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath on Amazon, and for some reason the paperback is heaps cheaper than the hardback, but it doesn't come out until December, 2020, and my unconscious reaction is, that's so long away - it may as well be years ||| but then I realised....it's next month // December 2020 is less than a month away now. 

I unlocked a badge on the nanowrimo website by updating my progress. also, I'm not as far behind as I thought...according to the website - nanowrimo - I would only need to write another 600 - 700 words to be on track. The ultimate goal is 50,000 words. now that I've logged my progress, I feel more motivated so I might actually write some more and update my progress today....there's just one problem (not that it really matters). I've logged that I've written 1069 words of my novel, but in a way, that's not true because this is a draft. It's very drafty. What I've written may never be part of a novel. but, like I said, it doesn't really matter, and, if anything, it's kind of encouraging....I could write absolutely anything, and log my progress and meet the goal. There's a lot that's exciting about the nanowrimo website actually....it has information about publishing your novel through Kindle Direct Publishing. That's encouraging for me, not because I want to learn about that but because I already know how to do it // I already published a booklet using KDP. But seeing that on the nanowrimo website builds my vision about what's possible. 

I just wrote another couple of hundred words, updated my progress, and earned another badge || for updating my progress twice in one day || It gives you a projected date that you will finish based on your progress so far, and adding those couple of hundred words brought my ETA back from February 2021 to January 2021. again, it's very motivating. No, I won't make the official goal of 50K words by November 30, if I keep going at my current rate, but January 2021 is just a couple of months away. When I think of writing a novel, I think of a long term project....like, it's virtually a truism the way that writers say that if they had known how much hard work and dedication it was going to take to write their book, they probably wouldn't have started writing. There's this idea - and it's something I've really built up in my mind - that a novel is like a heavy weight thing. but I haven't even worked that hard on it, and I'm on track to finish in a couple of months or less. Then again, it's a bit distorted // I signed up for nanowrimo on 6 October, and I wasn't strict about waiting until November to start writing...so, I've been working on it for a while. Still, I think I'm going to get more serious about it now, and actually try to write 1 or 2 thousand words a day. And getting started is the hardest part. That's always the case with any kind of writing. Like, when I start a new blog, it's so hard to write that first post, or if I haven't written for a while or if my life circumstances change a lot, it's always hard to write in a condition of newness.