Writing Observations

I'm slow off the start, but I've cleared the majority of my weekend to catch up. Last night, pounding furiously away on my laptop, I realized that my biggest obstacle was getting started. I wrote a paragraph or two of weak, "going nowhere' sentences, then I was off and running. I'm my own worst enemy. I've been sitting, waiting for the great sentence to come to me before I start writing and I should just start writing and eventually the great sentences, plot and characters build momentum of their own. My schedule is free on Thursdays after the 15th and I'm hoping that there will be a meeting or two I can attend. Write on!

My worst enemy to writing is forums. I can easily lose an hour or two of 'productive' typing time by paging through forums as I work myself up to actually write.

I've always known that I write better in present tense (pretty much anything of quality that I've ever written has been in the present tense), but for some reason I thought that, for this story, I should stick to a past tense narrative sort of style. Then, this morning at work, I was thinking about what I could write to get myself over the bump in the road I was stuck at, and I found myself thinking the scene in present tense. "He does this, he says that. He thinks something, and yet finds himself doing something else." And it kind of... fit. I couldn't think of it any other way, and that was alright, because everything seemed to work better. The words were flowing out in my head, and they ended up forming themselves an entire premise, and even a starting sentence, for the next bit I was going to write.

And now... now I'm writing in a different tense than I was before, but things are flowing so much better. I know it's not something I should be worrying about for Nano, but the imagery is so much more vivid now. The scenes aren't just telling what happened - they're showing it. Things are progressing, and I finally like what I'm writing. Or at least, I like it a lot more than what I shoved out last week. :)

Well you know what I've been doing with my novel. It's jumping between first and third person narative constantly right now. Perhaps it would have been better if I had merely gone for the third person all the way through but I probably would have given up by this point in time. It wouldn't have been anywhere near where I am now if I had gone with the third person. Now I find myself trying to think of things to write about that would be through the eyes of a child. I find myself in need of a drastic leap in age in order to get my story moving. I've been stuck in the same location and there's only so many things you can do in one place before you need to move forward. So I'm going to inject some fuel into my story and move to a different place.

It seems that we have a similar weakness then. = ) I tend to avoid forums when I'm trying to write for NaNo (unlike what I'm doing right now haha) but if you couple in some hardcore ADHD moments and combine that with sugar, you get instant!distraction. Ah fate, you are a cruel cruel mistress. xD

I've found my writing groove with NaNo. I get up at 5:00 am every morning, grab my laptop from the bedside dresser, fire it up and just write until 7:30 am when the kids have to get up for school. It is amazing how much I am getting done. I've up my daily output to 2000 words and am having a blast seeing where the characters want to go. The only negative is that the light from my laptop ( not to mention the sound ) wakes my husband. He grumbled the other day as he stumbled to the bathroom, " Aren't you at 50,000 words yet?" Bad news for him is that I like this routine and plan to keep going after November 30 passes.

That's great, but how do you manage the part where you get up at 5 a.m.? That just doesn't seem possible.

I just wake up. I go to bed looking forward to the early morning writing time. It feels so great starting the day with one of my biggest goals accomplished. The rest of the day is a gift. But I admit I have been a morning person since birth, much to the digust of my brother and sisters. Five in the morning is a bit early but it works.

I've heard there's a 5 am, but I didn't realize anyone had actually seen it. Sounds like you're on to something that works for you. Congrats!