JB's Aphotic Scriptorium

So with my first draft aside for the moment (editing has been slow, but almost coming...), I have taken up the lovely people that created NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) up on their challenge. A 50k word novel in 30 days.

I thought it would be awfully hard and I would only get to 20k at best.

Well as it stands right now, I am at 40k and it is only day nine. Also, the past 3 days I have been mind bogglingly (....I wonder if that is a word.....) sick, and had a friends wedding to help out in (while I was sick too mind you). I did maybe 1k or 2k when I was sick, so basically I have shocking myself at the amount of words that are coming out who knows where.

I also thought going into this that I would end up not liking my story or not being very happy with it because I would not have time to really work through it because of the deadline, but I was wrong there too.

I LOVE it! I love this story.

Now, I know. The other novel I have written (and you have no idea the pleasure of my saying that) is so important to me. That novel has been years in the making already, and is basically at the root of my writing love. But with that said, I can not just write it, and then let it go. I really need to make the novel the best and most flawless work I can because I see it as my baby really. My other unfinished works (like my NaNo story) I will see through and of course make them as flawless as possible, but the novel I have done is like 'the ultimate' in my mind right now. A dream reached. Yes, even unpublished, it still is a dream reached for me.

I have a feeling that I will not be trying to get it done and sent out to be published right away. I want to have time to work through it, and work on my other piece(s) because right now, it is still in that 'mine' process. It is my baby here. Give me some time to love it before I send it off to be rejected in college.
No wait, I really did not mean...okay, awful analogy. But I hope you get it. I want to enjoy working with it on my own time and really giving it the time it deserves instead of rushing through it just so I can send it off.

Wow, I should have just said that. But writers digress of course (and give the occasional awful analogy. Seriously- very sorry for that).

So back to the focus of NaNo. This is the story I see myself working through and getting done and sending off. Not that i think it deserves less time or needs to be edited less (by the way, it is awfully written right now, and for good reason; I have gotten more then half way through it in only 7 days!). It is because I am so enthusiastic about it, and really want others to read it and enjoy.

Perhaps to non writers, writing one book and writing another would be believed to have the same feelings. But that is definitely not so. The feelings I have for both books are impossibly different, yet impossibly the same.

NaNo is amazing for the record. I absolutely love it. The process is so different then what I have done before. It took me six months to write 50k, and I have done all but 10k in nine days. It really has not sunk it yet because it is so shocking to me. I have put in the hours, typed the words out myself, have the almost 70 solid pages of writing in front of me, but it still is surprising every time I think about it.

I am going to enjoy it while it lasts, because I have a feeling the editing that will come in December will not be as fun. Not *nearly* as fun.

Speaking of, I figured out the hours that it takes me to edit one chapter for the finished novel. I think it was ten. Hours I mean. And really NO ONE has the amount of time lying around. NO ONE. Least of all me at the moment. Like sure, I am probably doing not a half bad job editing in those ten hours, but I have TWENTY chapters! That is part of the reason I have not edited that much, and the fact that I have not updated that much (since there was nothing to update on).

Now, about blogging and updating:
I make no real promises to update, because I have no idea when things will happen to me/writing that will be worth updating you on. Now, with NaNoWriMo, I have a feeling that I will be updating when I get to the 50k and when I am editing and all the jazz that comes after. Who knows though.

Either way, Happy Writing!

JB