NaNoWriMo 2013: Week One

What happened this week? WHAT HAPPENED?

I had such grand plans to focus and dedicate myself stridently to 2000 words a day.

Yeah. That didn’t happen. So here’s what did…

After a first day which consisted of NO NEW WORDS (but I did finish up reading the draft) – I finally had to admit to myself that in order to move ahead, I was going to have to lag behind and remove the last five pages of the story. I cut them out, pasted them into another document and retooled the last scene.

It was… painful. It was a painful admission because I had planned to just push ahead and go back to fix it later but my brain refused to allow me to commit any more words until I’d committed to those cuts.

So my word count was reduced, then I spent most of Saturday and a wee bit of Sunday beefing it back up.

Monday I started off with the best of intentions, but then personal drama completely derailed me. Not that I didn’t make an effort but it’s hard to type when tears keeping falling on your keyboard and your heart and brain are in totally different places.

As the inevitable clusterfuck of N7 Day and Thor on Thorsday approached, I sort of just gave up during this week.

ALSO: I found myself at another roadblock where I have the entire action sequence laid out but precisely zero interest or motivation with WRITING IT OUT. I verbally explained it to my spouse, so it’s not that I don’t know what’s going to happen in the scene. I just, I kinda don’t care. I know the outcome and I know that it’s a resting point for those particular characters while I jump to the “Plot B” of this book.

At this point, I’d rather just jump to Plot B and come back to finish up Plot A when I’m in the mood. I guess that goes against the grains of all the writing rules but you know what? No one else is writing this book, so I’ll do what I please. 😉 The break has allowed me to do a lot of internal tooling of the main character and I’ve also decided I’m going to rework some of the earlier pieces. What I like about this particular stage of writing is that though I have a framework and outline to the story, when I’m writing things just kind of happen. Characters appear and take on a life and shape of their own. Decisions get made that I didn’t anticipate.

I like when my characters surprise me. Cause I think they will surprise the reader too.

THE GOAL FOR THIS WEEKEND:

Is to get back to my goal. To get back on track. Our beach trip plans were cancelled, so three completely open days stretch out before me. 72 hours of writing madness.

Current Word Count: 46,715
Where I Should Be: 55,386
GOAL FOR THE THREE-DAY WEEKEND: 61,386, which means writing an additional 14,671

BONUS POINTS:

“Don’t make me do this the hard way. Just take your medicine like a good boy,” I say, trying to affect sexy and charming. But there is too much fear and chaos happening to pull that off effectively. Rabbit’s not jumping at that bait. He is immune to my charms.

“Fine,” I snap, kneeing him in his privates. He opens his mouth with a gasp and I pop the pill past his lips, clasping my hand over his mouth and nose. He rolls to his side, curling in a fetal position and I tumble off into the grass, still keeping my grip.

“You have to swallow some time. Otherwise it’s going to dissolve in there,” I argue. “Either way, you need this.”

He shakes his head, the stubble from his cheeks rubbing roughly against my hands. Heat from his skin radiates all over my fingertips. He’s burning up with fever. It must be blood poisoning from his head wound or the NV in his system taking over.

After a full minute weakly struggling, thrashing his head, he gives up. I release my grip on him and roll over onto my back, panting. Searching the surrounding trees for signs of Prothero soldiers. I can’t hear them or see them yet, but I know they’re out there. I know they’re coming for us. Fast. We need to be fast.

“Drugs aren’t always going to be the answer,” Rabbit says with no particular inflection to his voice, his eyes dropping open. His pupils are already dilated to the size of saucers.

“Sure they are,” I respond, climbing to my feet.