November crept up on me and suddenly it’s time!
No more angst over whether my story is any good; if I have all the scenes down pat; is my character work complete; have I figured out all the locations…or maybe I should add or change a scene to another location. I’ve written the outline; I’ve written the character outline; I’ve written character sketches for young Aban and mature Aban; I’ve fleshed out El; and I’ve doodled some details on the minor characters of Aban’s parents. I’ve even dragged my mother through the rain to explore a ravine I’ve never seen to see if it will work in the scene where El takes Aban into the bowels of Toronto. Yup, it does.
I didn’t feel ready physically either. I’d had such a terrible couple of weeks of things breaking down and not being fixed, even when the repair guys said they were, that my rest period went out the window. All I wanted to do was sleep. So I did – instead of staying awake until midnight and starting on the last chapter first, as is my wont. (The rules of the NaNoWriMo game are that for words to be counted, they must’ve been written in the month of November only.)
This morning I realised that there’s no more time to worry, National Novel Writing Month has begun. I did my best to procrastinate. But with my internet miraculously back up and staying up, I got the tweets and e-mails that pep us Wrimos up and cue us to begin.
And so I did.
I didn’t make today’s word count goal of 1,667 words. I was 45 words short. But the chapter was right as it was. Maybe in revisions, I’ll lengthen it…or shorten it. Still, it’s a bit disconcerting to see on my Stats page that I’ve had an unsuccessful day. It made me want to sit down and write chapter 1! Except my dishwasher repair guy was here, and then I was e-mailed about an interview opportunity, and…and…and… And now that all the chores and good stuff are done, I’m sleepy again. So until tomorrow, when I shall rise to write again (I hope), check out thedailyplanet.com and my NaNoWriMo page!
