Real November Word Count/Real Writer

Bizarrely, I haven't updated since the end of October. I'm sure that's the opposite of what you're supposed to do for NaNo, but we've already discussed I'm a bit of a rebel in that department. I'd like to say that I have done nothing but write since then. This is true, I have written a lot. It is not, however, the only thing I've done. 

  I like this overall word count thing people keep doing. It's great. It makes it look like you accomplished something instead of 789 words the third day of the week. That makes it look like you have not accomplished something. I do not like this feeling. I don't like math either, so you should know that all my words are probably off by ten since I cannot for the life of me remember any order of any numbers. 

Overall count: 14,743 words.

Yeah, I don't know how that can be right for less than two weeks worth of writing, but that's what it's telling me. I think it's right. For some reason, it feels like I really haven't written at all. I keep saying again and again how writing this novel feels like re-teaching myself how to do this. My last novel took two months and it was done. I don't even remember writing it. This one has been the more traditional-chain-oneself-to-the-desk-scenario. 

Then again I did have my wisdom teeth taken out a few days ago and I'm still recovering from that. I'm also on narcotics which mean my life at the moment goes a bit like this; hmmm, I think I need to go to the bathroom. I'm going to get up and go to the bathroom right now. Whoa, the floor is moving. THE FLOOR IS MOVING! I must hang on to the wall. *forget what I'm doing on the way to do it* Remember suddenly I was supposed to be on my way to the bathroom. So, why am I in the kitchen... pouring myself orange juice... in a bowl? 

I am not kidding. That is pretty close to accurate. I cannot begin to fathom why in the world someone would be addicted to painkillers. Oh, and my cheeks swelled up so I looked like Alvin the Chipmunk's girl cousin. And the ice pack I have to wear makes me look like this:

It's a miracle what I've done anything writing wise. I had thought about saying, 'oh whatever, I look like that guy above and I can't think straight, I'm going to skip writing.' For whatever reason, every nerve ending in my body rejected this idea and I found myself writing while periodically spitting blood out. I like to think this makes me a REAL writer. But I'm tempted to make a sardonic joke about real writers being on narcotics all the time and ending up in treatment or shooting themselves. I'm not going to do that. Those people are not real writers. (Still, when you start thinking those 'real writers' it gets really disrupting. I don't like to think about it.)

So, since I'm a real writer, the blood sweat and tears type, and I kept writing, I have hit the spot where it gets really fun. The denouement, a French word that means 'we are close to the end, write like a manic.'

  I have five chapters left. I am currently 738 words into these last five chapters. I've been going at a pace, at least before oral surgery, of a chapter a day. We'll see if this keeps up. Truth be told, it's not too hard to do. But some small part of me wants to save this little bit until I can really appreciate it, i.e. stop walking into walls. 

I'm also going to post quick one sentence snippets of what I've written for the day. If only to make it really hit home for me that I'm almost done. Something I really can't believe is here already. 

  

Goals, Logs, and Reasons

Hmm, call me anti-establishment, but it's not accurate. I just don't like the 50,000 word necessary-ness. Can't stand it all. All my goal is for NaNo is a finished book.

Goal: Finished Book.

My book, which is already mercilessly long (I apologize in advance, printer) should be finished in roughly ten to twelve chapter. Tonight I wrote for an hour and a half.

Writing Log: Hour and a Half.
Tremendously unfocused, however.

Words: 1,162

It's not so bad. It's quite good actually. Tomorrow, I'm going to ruin my poor character's life. The worst part; I'm not even going to feel bad.

My plot for this novel is unlike anything I have written before. Usually, I am a very structured writer who keeps very detailed outlines and sketches out how many words I'm allowed to use for a conversation. Not this book. This book I'm just writing along then all of a sudden my brain goes, 'Hey, Sarah, what about a sub-plot.' Then I just throw a sub-plot in there. It's going to be a nightmare to edit. Then again, all editing is a nightmare. Not looking forward to that.


For tomorrow; ruin Harper's life, write without doing another twelve different things, start earlier, and go longer.


As Mia asked for, I've pondered my reasons for writing, or doing Nano, over the day. I'm doing Nano because it's fun to write with friends when you know you're writing with them. Writing's very solitary, and it's nice knowing you're not the only one who doesn't care about ruining your character's life. And I write because I go insane otherwise. If I don't write, my head implodes. If I don't write, I get intolerably crabby. I have to write just like I have to breathe. It's necessary to my DNA.

On another note, this book itself as felt more pressing than my other books to write. It actually feels like some divine being wants me to write this book very badly. I get these odd subliminal pushes to keep going when I get stuck.

On my author's page is a summer of my current writing project, and reading it will have this make a lot more sense. My novel is all about celebrities, and even more so about what happens when two of them mate, then spawn. It's a book about rock star offspring, and their difficulties in the world. It's also about prodigies. Over the course of writing this book, which I've been doing since late August, I have had SO MANY stories of married musicians, children of two very talented people, teenage prodigies, or on rare occasions, all of them combined into real, living, breathing people. They are constantly falling into my lap.


That to me is reason enough to powerful even the worst of writer's block.