I was not planning on doing NaNoWriMo this year, but I got talked into it. I’m working on a few plays right now, with more I want to work on once I get some drafts done of the ones I’m already working on, so writing a novel this month wasn’t in the plans. But, since my writing outside of my drama has been suffering some lately, I let myself be persuaded to participate.
Technically. I’m not writing a novel, I’m writing essays. Writing one smaller piece per day or every couple of days should be easier than keeping together a longer work. Plus, I don’t have to worry about editing a whole book, should I decide I want to publish. I can edit and send out individual essays as I go, and eventually, get the whole thing edited. Put some on the blog. That’s probably more realistic and sustainable for me. I don’t have any illusion that I’d have a publishable novel after speeding through for 30 days, but ending up with essays that can be shaped into something more? Definitely a better goal for me. Your own possible goals as a writer, obviously will vary.
Today went pretty smoothly. I wrote 2472 words in a little over an hour. I hope I can write at this clip throughout the whole month, especially since that would mean I only have to devote an hour or so each day on this project, when I have others going on. I also wrote a poem today, as part of Poetic Asides’ November Poem-A-Day Chapbook Challenge. I took the prompt in, wrote my garbage draft by hand, then let it go and moved on to working on the day’s essay. Total time investment: about 20-25 minutes or so.
I hope I can keep all this up. I do want to complete these challenges. The real gold for me will be finally establishing a much better writing practice than I’ve had heretofore, as much as the actual work that gets produced. Some writers don’t like the idea of writing every day, but I need to work more than I have. And work towards publication, which means once this all settles on November 30, working in more time to edit and send stuff out instead of it heading towards the drawer or staying in the journal forever. As much as I know that writing can include fighting or inviting the muse, I do want to be more systematic in my approach. The dearth of posts here are a testament to my need to improve in this area, even if I do have plays and other work going on. And again, the time investment was just one hour; I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have an hour a day to devote to this project.