Week 2 of NaNo is behind me and everyone else and believe it or not, I’m in amazing spirits!
I do not have the list of news like I did last week about stories getting published and winning a contest, but I am happy to say that I am ahead of schedule with my NaNo novel by over two thousand words.
My biggest fear going into NaNo was “the wall”.
All writers know about “the wall” even though they may use a different term for it. Here’s the scenario:
You come up with a story. It sounds great. The scenes start coming to life before you could grab a pen and paper to take notes. In the very back of your mind you picture a bookstore full of people begging to meet you, you see yourself looking through the newspaper and finding your new novel at #1. . . or maybe that’s just me. J
Anyways, you have this idea. You start writing it and a few thousand words – or maybe twenty thousand words – into it, you hit a wall where the story just stops. You’re stuck. Sure you can have a monster show up and eat people to get action going or maybe have your main character win the lottery and then live vicariously through them because you realize this will never be a bestseller because it can’t even be finished by the author.
For most writers, hitting “the wall” doesn’t last very long but the time it does take is painful. The reason is because as you try to climb that wall and move the story forward you find more and more walls.
Luckily, up to this point, I have not hit “the wall” with my NaNo story. It has been smooth sailing with one idea after another. The ideas work, the first draft is coming along great, and I’m really into my characters and whole concept. I find myself comparing daily events to what characters in the novel would do. To me, that’s a good sign.
And for those who care about my plan I talked about a few weeks ago – that is going perfectly. As I write this my wife is reading the first half of my other novel and I am still secretly penning the novel after that. I do see one problem coming. . . letting go.
I can see myself on November 30 at 11:59pm hugging my screen not wanting to put Jack, Hazel, Abby, Teddy, and Vegas away. . . I want to still to be with them. Then I’m going to have to do a 180 and welcome back Charlie, Baila, Bill, Marcia, and Julie to finish their well deserved story.
But to me if that’s my biggest problem – fighting over which characters mean more – I think I’m on the right path.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, my dinning room just transformed into a bookstore and crowds holding signs and posters are waiting for me to start signing autographs.
