« brief update: meeting your needs | Main | Still going »
November 03, 2005
Noveling
As you can see from the little pencil-toting runner icon over there on the right, I'm doing National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short) this November. It's the third day, and I passed 5,000 words this morning, so I'm on pace, given that the official goal is 50,000 words in 30 days. I'm a tenth of the way there. And I'm having a blast.
I've been setting the coffee maker to turn on at 6:00 a.m. and getting up and writing for an hour or more in the mornings. I've loved walking to work the past three days knowing that I've already been so productive.
It's not that what I'm writing is necessarily all that good, although I think a decent percentage of it at least has potential. It's mostly that the sheer act of writing, of sitting at my desk and typing 2,000 words a day, is reminding me how much I used to love this. Writing has become so fraught over the years, something I obsess about more often than I actually do; and so just doing it has been a powerful relief from all the angst and mental energy that has gone into fretting about not doing it.
2,000 words a day is a lot and yet not a lot at the same time. I've written far more in a day, back in college when I'd pull all-nighters to get a paper done, and even some short stories have come faster, in great bursts of marathon writing. 2,000 words a day has been taking me between two and three hours. It's enough to feel like a commitment, but not so much that I can't still have a life. Mostly? I've just given up non-essential TV. (Essential TV being Arrested Development, Gilmore Girls, My Name is Earl, and Nip/Tuck.)
I realize I've been terrible and completely inconsistent about updating this web site. At least now I have a really good excuse, for the rest of the month.
Posted by sarah at November 3, 2005 12:54 PM
Comments
How is it that you're always so in the know about the now thing to do? You're like the the queen bee of the hive mind.
I am happy for the birth of your novel, though i'll miss more regular log updates.
Posted by: jc at November 4, 2005 12:51 AM
Sarah:
Sharing NaNoWriMo with you is one of the peak experiences of 2005. In a year with your wedding and Dave's graduation and Anna's college acceptance, that's saying a lot. Thanks again for being "in the know" about this amazing project.
Love,
Mom
Posted by: Mom at November 10, 2005 11:20 PM
Huzzah! If this were you running a marathon I would be on the side of the road cheering (i.e., "SA-RAH! SA-RAH!" and "It's your birthday, go Sarah, it's your birthday," etc.). Yeah!
Posted by: aryani at November 15, 2005 01:50 PM
