NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month and is held every November. It’s a challenge to write 50,000 words of a novel in thirty days (or 1,667 per day). Writers and wanna-be writers come together with a common goal to write novels, short stories, memoirs, whatever it is they’ve been putting off or need a push to get started. This year I decided I would document my daily writing practice as I strive to finish a draft of a novel I’ve been taking far too long on.
Day 22
Words Written: 1,683
Total Word Count: 36,723
Goal: 50,000
Hit the goal again today. It was a so-so writing day. I’m moving forward with the story but I’m at a point where I don’t know the best way to write it. I feel like and saying a lot of “and thens” and “nexts” and “after theys.” I’m trying to keep moving forward to just get the action out and get the plot out on paper and not worry about how exactly it’s being written yet.
It’s hard to keep going when I know the writing isn’t great because it feels like I’m just doing work that needs to be rewritten or that I’m just not good enough to actually write a novel. Like always I’m trying to move forward and stay positive. While this section might not be the final version of it, I have to write it and get it out of my head for it to evolve into whatever it will be in the end.
It’s been proven, in my own work, and from more accomplished writers that getting it down is more important than getting it perfectly the first time. Everyone knows Anne Lamott’s shitty first drafts and their importance in creating a story. If I don’t write it poorly the first time, I’m never going to write it at all. I can shape bad writing into something good, but I can’t shape nothing into something.
Until tomorrow,
-Mackenzie
