A day of raving and resting does wonders. It was a case of doing a few things that I wanted to do, and to relax and get away from the computer for a while. Sometimes that happens: you need to recharge the batteries, and sometimes the best way to do that is to disconnect and be a real person for a while.
Writing is a good thing, but as William Gibson has said, if nothing is coming today, don’t force it. Do something else, and let the writing relax. And I did. I got out for a bit. I did a little window shopping online. I put the NaNo book away for a bit.
Then I came back at 8:30 PM and started writing.
I had a bit to day, and I started saying it the way I thought my character would embrace the words. And she did. She was like my little phoenix, rising up from her ash funk, and returning to that pretty bird she was at the start. It was personal, and it didn’t hurt to write. Probably because it was meant to be a cleansing moment for her, to allow her to understand who she really is at this point.
When I had originally envisioned this scene–and this is something I’ve done many times before–I had my main character having a bit of a freak out due to her being seen, in the story, as some kind of Queen of the Supernatural. But then I remembered how I’d created her, and how she’d grown in the first story. Now I’m taking two years between that story and this one, and thinking about how she would grow even more . . . and she still wouldn’t rant. Maybe have a tearful moment alone, in her home, wondering why she is walking the road she is upon–but she would eventually realize this is her jihad, and she is there for a reason.
That means less raving, more introspection. It’s her way.
That’s how I went with the chapter last night. I pushed the story up over twenty-five thousand words last night, so I’m over one NaNo hump: The Fight for Fifty. I’m half way there after eight days. Tomorrow I should hit the thirty thousand, and that puts me over the hump for My Novel is Finished, Time For Ice Cream. With a cherry on top. That’s really important.
My view of what I’m doing this NaNo is slightly colored by what I did last NaNo–or what I think I did. If I check my page, I see my word count as of 11:30 last night was 25,275. By Day 8 last year, I’d reached 30,617. But two days earlier, I was at twenty-three thousand and change–and Day 5 I was at twenty thousand. I’d had a huge bust of creative energy during that three day period, and I was The Girl on Fire, figuratively. Couldn’t have been literally, otherwise I wouldn’t be here to tell you this right now.
We’ll see what happens in these remaining days, and in particular, this weekend. Last year I averaged 2,889 words a day. This year, so far, without any input this day, I’m at 2,808 words a day. So I’m at the same pace, which means there shouldn’t be a panic that I’m burned out and tired of this crap.
Keep moving, keep writing.
And keep thinking about that cherry.
