Sunday, November 08, 2015

It's not so bad!

So I thought it might be good to keep a record of how my writing is progressing, so that if I decide to do this again in a future year, I will be able to look back on this year's experience with something more accurate than memory.

The first few days were great, but then life got in the way. This morning, though, I got up nice and early to try and get some writing done, because the rest of the day is filled with various events. Although I've started both threads of my story, I've mostly been focusing on one of the threads this past week. As I re-read the story I've written so far, I felt the excitement rise - I am LOVING the story! I think I've written it pretty well, so far, but then, I suppose I'm biased. But, what I really loved was that I found myself being sucked straight back into the story. I want to know how it ends, because it's an exciting story. For me, that was a great moment. If I am excited by this story, then hopefully others will be too.

The actual writing though, is hard. I'm not a planner; I'm what's called a pantser - writing by the seat of your pants. As I write, the characters reveal the story to me. I have a broad overview of where I think this story is going, but already I've been surprised as where the characters take me. They're changing the story as we travel along together. But that makes it hard. It's no longer just me thinking about how to say what I want to say - I have to really listen to the characters, and figure out where we're going, and then figure out how best to convey that on paper. My brain isn't used to this type of creative work - it's definitely out of practice.

I've hit my target for today, but it took me two hours. I still have lots of writing to catch up on... 4360 words, in fact! At this rate, I really am going to have to write every day if I want to hit my target by the end of the month.

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