I'm in to day two of NaNoWriMo and let me tell you, this is a lot harder than it looks. I'm doing really well on my word count, but this experience has been enlightening in so many ways already. For example, I'm apparently for the most part incapable of writing out of order. I wrote what I feel like is the ending of the story some time ago and I'm using that as the jumping board of the rest of the plot, but there's a lot to cover between the beginning and the end. And now that I've dove in head first to the story-line, I can't seem to break from it. So when I get stuck with dialog that doesn't sound believable or I haven't been able to convince myself that my character has every right to get down right snippy with her co-star everything comes to a screaming halt until I work it out.
The NaNoWriMo people say over and over not to edit. Editing is bad. Edit in December, after your story is complete. And several people I know who are participating in this craziness have joined in with how freeing it is to let go of your inner editor and just let the writing flow. For me though, I feel like my story is incomplete with all of those disjointed parts that don't flow naturally together. And I often find myself re-reading to figure out where my plot will go next. Maybe if I'd had more time to plan this out instead of deciding to just "do this thing" three days before the event started. Or had more than a half baked idea of what my story was even going to be about, I might be okay with just letting the writing flow. Okay, probably not. Too much of a control freak I guess.
Those same friends have offered up a few programs that help them in their writing flow and I thought I'd share them here for anyone who's interested.
Scriviner:
This handy program lets you write your book in individual files or scenes that you can re-order and organize at a later date.
Yarne:
A lot like Scriviner but free.
Write or Die by Dr. Wicked
I love the concept of this if you're able to actually sit down and devote a set time to your writing. This handy program forces you to write by providing consequences if you don't. Some of the fun consequences include: disabling your backspace, a full-screen mode to cut out all other desktop distractions, disable save until word count goal is met, makes it so the program is always in front of any other programs, or a time limit. While I'm not sure writing by punishment is the way to go for me, it sure does sound like a lot of fun.
But I think the very best part of this experience so far is writing more of this one story than I have ever written for any story ever. I've just broken 10,000 words - so 1/5 of the way to my goal. I do consider myself having cheated a bit in that count since I'm including the ending I wrote and posted here last Sunday in my word count, but that's only about 900 words, so I think I'm still doing really well. And because this is a contest of sorts, I feel compelled to keep going - to keep working out where the story is going - than I would have otherwise. I've written a lot of incomplete scenes but never tried to bring story so completely to life like I am this time. That, is freeing.
Seriously.. Thoughts?
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