Sort of Quiet On the Writing Front

October 15, 2012 by Cassidy Frazee | 7 Comments

Crazy weekends leading to crazy things.  I caught up on sleep, I did a lot of research . . . I wrote my butt off.  Well, not really.  The butt is still there.  But the fingers got a work out.

It’s always the same:  planing, plotting, set up, and even writing a story or two here and there.  Most of the weekend involved getting the NaNo Novel 2012 set up and ready to go come Zero Hero, but I also found time to write the next chapter in my four-part Halloween story I’m doing over on Storytime Trysts.  It’s easy to find my story:  it’s the one with the title no one can pronounce.

I just check the Scrivener file on this story, and right now I’ve a word count of six thousand, four hundred and thirty.  If I write another two thousand words–which isn’t out of the question–I’ll finish up around eighty-four hundred words.  This could end up becoming my shortest story ever, and still not be a “real” short story.  I’ll cut the difference and call it a short story, because who’s going to argue?

At this point I have nothing to work one, save the development for NaNo.  Which is a good thing, because I don’t want to work on another project at this point.  I did a lot of little projects last year during NaNoWriMo, and while I’ll continue blogging here during the month of November (because who doesn’t want to see someone describing what it’s like to lose one’s mind as they strive to achieve something mere mortal only dream about), I won’t do anything else.  No stories, no guest blogging, no articles.

Just me and my novel.  And the pain that will likely set up somewhere between my eyes.

I have my goals set.  I know what I’m going to write, more or less.  Now, bring on November!

Right.  I feel my body clench ever time I look at a calendar.

NaNo is not for the faint of heart.  You have to, as Chuck Wendig says so ungentlemanly says, “Get to scribbling, motherfucker.”  I’m feeling that, in order to get this novel done the right way, I’m going to need to cut myself off from most of the Internet.  Just reach out and talk to those parts of The Matrix that will bring me help and hope, and screw everything else that does little more than suck at my brain.

What I need:  Google, Wikipedia, Maps, NaNoWriMo page.  What I don’t need:  Facebook, Facebook, Facebook . . . You hear me?  I should just delete that shit off my computer.  Simply put, social media isn’t all that sociable.  It’s too much of a distraction.

Oh, sure, I might check out the NaNoWriMo group and laugh at the members who spend half the day going, “Hey, who’s sprinting?  I need to write 1,000 words–LETS SPRINT!”  Or, you could, you know, just write.  You know?  Fingers on the keyboard, words appear on the screen?  It’s like magic!

It’s also your job.

Writing, despite what some might say, is work.  It’s a lot of work.  You can take pleasure from it, or you can spend a few minutes every hour cursing the day you decided to listen to the voices inside your head.  But if you think you can write fifty thousand words in thirty days and nights of insanity by spending most of the day believing you’re the Tony Stark of the NaNo world, summoning Jennifer and Black Widow and Crimson Witch to help you get that novel out of your mind and onto the page, you’re never gonna get done.

Plant butt in chair, flip on whatever gets the creative juice flowing, and write, baby, write.

Push that front, ’cause it ain’t gonna push itself.