I'm having a helluva time keeping this thing up. I knew I'd need to jump way ahead in those first few days and instead managed to have a few problems and goof off a lot and all that jazz. I still need to draw myself up a rudimentary map, so I can know what I'm doing. Do I really need to have a map in the book? I know it's one of those things that everyone thinks MUST be in a fantasy novel, but you know what? I almost never give a shit about them. Is there anyone out there who gets upset if there's no map? I can admit that in some cases, especially when movements of troops and people and ports and whatnot play a huge role, then maybe they're needed. I like seeing a map of the universe of A Song of Ice and Fire, but maybe that's partly because HBO has also built that into my brain with the intro to Game of Thrones. No, I think it was there before.
Anyway, I'm starting to write more and more comments and type more and more placeholder asterisks--I do a little *** when I don't want to look something up, or don't want to have to stop my momentum right then and make up a place name or a cultural quirk--and I'm worried that I'm going to have to stop writing at some point and go back and do more prewriting. Damn.
But I have been sticking to the NaNoWriMo mandate of not editing pretty well. I did write one paragraph after a liter of beer and it made almost no sense, so I deleted that. I also have been discovery writing now that I'm out of the outline I made and in that process I have discovered that I need to go back and edit some previous pages heavily to make a plot element reveal itself naturally but surprisingly. I'm trying to end every chapter on a little bit of something that might make you curious to keep going, and sometimes that means going back a page and doing some alterations. Right now, I'm just commenting it thoroughly. But this is draft zero. When I'm done here, I'll go write the first draft and it won't have any story-telling inconsistencies like it has now.
Okay, back to working, so I can be done and go home and get back to writing. I'm about a day behind still. I was a little over a day behind yesterday when I had to go to bed because I was dead. Now I have a weekend coming up. If I can get approximately exactly 6571 words in those days, I'll be back on track, and primed to start falling behind again during the work week. Why the fuck does November end on a Friday? To kick my ass, that's why!
Anyway, I'm starting to write more and more comments and type more and more placeholder asterisks--I do a little *** when I don't want to look something up, or don't want to have to stop my momentum right then and make up a place name or a cultural quirk--and I'm worried that I'm going to have to stop writing at some point and go back and do more prewriting. Damn.
But I have been sticking to the NaNoWriMo mandate of not editing pretty well. I did write one paragraph after a liter of beer and it made almost no sense, so I deleted that. I also have been discovery writing now that I'm out of the outline I made and in that process I have discovered that I need to go back and edit some previous pages heavily to make a plot element reveal itself naturally but surprisingly. I'm trying to end every chapter on a little bit of something that might make you curious to keep going, and sometimes that means going back a page and doing some alterations. Right now, I'm just commenting it thoroughly. But this is draft zero. When I'm done here, I'll go write the first draft and it won't have any story-telling inconsistencies like it has now.
Okay, back to working, so I can be done and go home and get back to writing. I'm about a day behind still. I was a little over a day behind yesterday when I had to go to bed because I was dead. Now I have a weekend coming up. If I can get approximately exactly 6571 words in those days, I'll be back on track, and primed to start falling behind again during the work week. Why the fuck does November end on a Friday? To kick my ass, that's why!
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