16 893 words: the final frontier

For those of you who have been following my blog, you know that I am currently doing the NaNoWriMo challenge.

They don’t call it a challenge for nothing, I am telling you. I am finding incredibly hard to keep up with the pace and reconciling a very busy work life.  It is pretty hectic!

Nonetheless, I have made the choice not to sacrifice my entire social life. Come on! I had to watch Dr Who’s 50th birthday episode. 😉

It was somewhat a mistake.  I also discovered on the late that doing word wars were a great way to make me write a substantial amount of words in 15 minutes. I will know this for next year. Lesson learnt!

I am lagging behind the recommended average but there are still a few days on, so I have never given up yet! The draft is very rough around the edges but I am quite pleased with quite a few of the chapters. Not everything will go to the trash when I review and edit myself in a couple of months.

More importantly,  this Nano has made me realise one big thing: I love writing. I love it far more than I have ever known. Somewhat, I have always known it deep down but I have never been honest enough with myself to admit it. Writing possesses me and I totally lose track of time when I write. I can start it is daytime and stop it is night time.

I have been very lucky to receive great moral support from friends and I am really delighted that a very talented illustrator has accepted to draw the cover of my book but this is a story for another time 😉

 

NaNoWrimo: Write-in and Word Count

Last Friday, I attended the Nano Write-in at La cordée in Paris. I met the most amazing people. I was blown away by the quality of the people I met!

I did manage to increase my word count even if I am lagging behind as per the average suggested by Nano. I don’t mind so much as it is my novel’s first draft. I still want to write something good versus crunching down the number of words. I am vaguely under pressure since I saw a rather threatening reply to my Facebook status from my publisher ‘I am watching you’! X-D

More seriously, I am really enjoying dedicating most of my free time to writing. I have always wanted to spend more time writing and somehow I can’t believe it has taken me so long to come to this realisation. Nano is being a good thing for me. It prevents me from falling into my usual writing downfall: the ‘glass head’.

The ‘glass head’ is this bad habit you have as a writer of omitting descriptions: in your head, it is crystal clear what is going on and what can be seen but it isn’t for the reader. Having to still get the word count, it forces to describe more than I would normally do. I am feeling more at ease with the descriptions now.

One of my other big realisations is the fact that being a writer entails a rather drastic discipline. Writing is like anything else: practice makes it perfect and you have to be disciplined and committed about writing.

I have discovered that I am very committed to my writing. As a result, despite being offered some good translation projects, I feel that I no longer want to dedicate myself to support other people’s projects. I want to build worlds, stories.

I will just follow the best advice I have ever read and those words came from Neil Gaiman:

Write

Write

Write

Write

Write

Each Cloud has Its Silver Lining

Today was a seriously unpleasant wet day. It was not made any easier by having a riotous child in the classroom. Oh girl!

Anyhow, there is a lovely guy who teaches a slam workshop in the school where I work on Fridays. A very cool dude. We started to talk music and I told him that I have recorded an album before and he mentioned to me that he is most definitely interested in vocal voices. That’s so cool!

Otherwise, I have discovered a very talented illustrator called Jean-Jacques Dzialowski during a book signing at my favourite haunt. I did buy the Lancaster comic and was well impressed by the quality of his drawing skills. I have asked him if he would be willing to do the book cover of my impending novel and he has accepted :- )

After two days of tiredness and healthy distractions, I am back being a normal human being and have resumed writing today. I am looking forward to tomorrow for some more writing.

A Dash of Colour

I felt the need for a dash of colour as it is now getting dark, wet and gloomy! 🙂

Bad Wordcount…

Trying to combine work and intense writing proves to be very difficult indeed. My wordcount truly sucks for the last two days. I can only redeem myself on Thursday as I will have more free time.

Friday should be good too: not too much going on!

I am really counting on the weekend to achieve some intense writing sessions.

Enough of the bad news! I am actually really happy with writing this novel and despite tiredness leading to a small daily word count, the story is progressing at a nice pace and it is quite magical to see it unfold. I am finding that the novel has a life of its own and it is taking me to places I never thought it would

NaNoWriMo Update n°1: 5229 words so far

NaNoWrimo is being a life changing experience. I like the discipline that I have to impose on myself. I am usually not the Queen of Discipline. My inner rebel is far too strong 😀

The NaNo France community is being very supportive and I am enjoying diving every day in my first novel that my dear publisher has been waiting for far too long.

I made the decision to buy Scrivener for another purpose (ebook production) and I am discovering every day what a wonderful tool it is for writers. I am in love with this program! It totally works with my way of writing.

I am really serious about the 50K but down the line if the book ended up being shorter, it is fine by me.
Social interactions are being tenuous or limited during this period as I really want to make the most of it!

Life is evolving around word counts!