Jumping Tracks

Word count: 5,278

Donald ate some food that was prepared using Louise's wine that absorbed her bitterness, so he's in a coma inside her subconscious. Much of that journey is already chronicled in 10,000 words of rough draft, and it's been my goal since the start of Nanowrimo to retell that portion of the story with new purple prose and tons of padding (and, in SOME cases, copying text where I wouldn't change a word of what's already there, don't worry I'm not cheating my way to the finish line).

However, retreading old ground is boring. I could change up the events for Don (and will), but for really early in the plot, his plight is STILL boring to me. I don't want to think of getting him and Rory from the valley to the Infatuation Field. I want to bust out some new funk.

SO, since Louise blacks out after accidentally taking one of Don's "blue pills" and enters his subconscious, and for the past couple of months I've had nothing but fun and colorful ideas surrounding what sorts of things and characters would fill a male mind, my writing process has skipped ahead in the story to Louise's journey. Perhaps the added prespective will help me write each's story so that they link in a few ways. Or at least, I can write in one story until I hit a wall then switch to the other. The words I generate for Nanowrimo do not have to be linear!

Also, minor note of annoyance at discovering tonight just before 9pm that I had a big assignment due by midnight. Several hours of would-be nano sacrificed to a 10-page assignment. Why is it that I can scratch up 2,200 words in three hours for a school assignment but it's still molasses-torture just to generate 800 words in a single day? :(

It Begins!

Word Count: 2,111

NaNoWriMo began earlier at midnight, and I arrived at my regional NanoWeen write-in with some seven minutes to spare (thanks to Alex for providing terrible directions but at least we got there).

That night I rounded up some 1100 words in the company of a ring of writers who've done this sort of thing for a few years already, and everyone was comfortable tapping/scratching away at their word counts. I've found "Word Wars," aka spontaneous starting pistols of "everyone write as much as you can in 10 minutes" to be really productive. It's strange: I shouldn't have anything invested in a quick turn of competition, nor did I actually want to beat anyone there, but when someone says "quickallthewordsyoucanfitnowgogogo" my mind quits dinkin' around and types.

I am SO grateful to myself for writing 20 Nights In Paris, the rough attempt at Chewing On Eden, in 500-word bursts earlier this year. Using that draft as a stepping stone is preventing me from stalling too hard in the early stage of NaNoWriMo, a sort of on-rails portion before I continue to expand on every little detail. Yeah, dinner in fiction lasts forever when you're choking down a word count. Haha, the best part is that Don only just arrived in Paris in that rough draft before I stopped. The title location wasn't even fleshed out!

That'll do for now. Libraries are awesome for isolated writing. Next Sunday I'll see how well group writing goes.