Today I wrote 1,512 words. In just about an hour.
I was hesitant to write today. I awoke nice and early…
…however, I didn’t work on my novel right away. I had to work on other literary things. Then exercise. Then bring the kids to school. Then visit my uncle in hospital. Then come home…And still I worked on other things for about two hours. Other good things. All writing-related.
But my ‘work day’ ends at 3:00pm-ish during the week because that’s when I have to go get my kids from school. So when I looked at the clock and it said 2:01pm, I knew I had to stop everything – and get to working on my novel.
I stared at the last few lines of what I wrote last for some time before I was able to get my fingers on the keyboard and start typing. Then it was like the characters took my fingers and told them where to go. And these crazy plot twists unravelled…and the characters got all smart and sassy. It was amazing.
Currently, I am exhausted and humbled. By the characters. Their stories. Their courage.
But…I’m feeling like I need to keep track of them – of this story. What I learned from doing NaNo last time was that if I don’t keep track of anything outside of the word document I’m writing in (aka be a complete and utter Panster), then there’s a buttload of editing issues to deal with on the other side. And while I know there will be a buttload of editing issues to deal with on the other side, I’d really like it if there were fewer structurally this time around. I want to learn from this process, right?
So, it may happen that one or two days this month will be spent continuing to compile story info on cue cards so I can refer back to them and not lose things like character’s names (especially last names, I’m so bad with last names!), street names, birth dates, history facts, etc..
What are you doing to keep it all organized? Or are you full-on pantsing? (Don’t worry if you are. No judgie here.)
Here’s a post-write vid:
Yikes. Gotta jet.
Happy Writing!
VANESSA SHIELDS, writer 