Sunday, November 9, 2008

NaNoWriMo - 27,115 words so far

In the first eight days of NaNoWriMo, I've written 27,115 words.

As I reread some of the words I've written, I wince. One scene written two ways. Another scene that needs better motivation. Bulk words, I say to myself, words cranked out, not final words. First draft.

Did my other stuff start out this bad?

Probably worse. Even as I reread my NaNoWriMo entry, I do have POV correct, and I no longer write sentences that start with "This is" or "That is". Progress of a sort, I suppose.

Last year I took Shannon Donnelly's Show and Tell course offered by the Published Authors' Special Interest Chapter of the RWA (PASIC). She said most of writing is rewriting. You write down what you can, messy as it is, then go back and layer in emotion, showing, descriptions, etc.

And fix the spelling. Probably half my words have typos.

But now for the good news: I'm more than halfway through. This week I have other things to work on, so I had to get ahead. Next time I won't report a really high word count.

I'll end with some shameless promotion. On Friday, November 14, I'll be blogging at Between the Lines on "Where To Find Romance--In a Book, That Is".

Thank you all,
Linda

4 comments:

Kaye Manro said...

Great word count, Linda! And isn't it so true? Our first drafts are often so not complete. But, hey-- NaNo is all about word count. You can fix and layer later.

I like that: Writing is about rewriting. My thoughts exactly.

Have a productive rest of the NaNo. And good luck on edits.

Linda Banche said...

Thanks, Kaye.

I've heard some authors say they can write a fairly clean first draft. Really? I rewrite A LOT. I even rewrite blog posts before I send them.

Well, good for them.

Unknown said...

Good luck with NaNo. I'm not doing it this year as I had too many commitments I had to do this November. But I hope to do it next year. You're doing well with more than half done and tomorrow's only the middle of the month.

Linda Banche said...

Thanks for the encouragement.

So you didn't do NaNoWriMo this year. So what? It will be there for you next year.

Thanks for dropping by.