Monday, November 21, 2011

So Bad!

That's what I call the writing I've done today: So bad!!! With work and life and hesitation, I've managed to fall behind in my November word count goals. According to my lovely NaNoFiMo chart, I should be celebrating 70,000 words today. Instead, I started today a few hundred words shy of 66,000.

I'm writing an arraignment hearing, thinking the whole time, "This is horrible! Why am I even writing this? I should be trying to figure out how to avoid this scene!"

But I'm trying to take a cue from the brave writers of NaNoWriMo, pursuing quantity over quality. Marching toward their goal with the understanding that not everything will be perfect; when the month and contest is over, they can mine their words for useful pieces. Maybe it's just a couple sentences, maybe it's half. Heck, maybe it's most of it. But the point is, they can't worry about that during the contest. Self-doubt is the enemy, here.

I glance back at what I have written and want to erase it. It's so easy to hit backspace, to highlight hundreds of words and delete them with a single key stroke! But I'll leave it. Maybe there's a gem or two in there; at the very least it gets me closer to where I need to be--because I can't wait to have the whole thing written, to print it out and examine it from beginning to end. I keep thinking of balls I've dropped along the way--"oh, I never mentioned this detail"; "I should clarify these points"--and stop myself from going backward. Once I'm done, once I have those 75,000 or so words, I can look at those balls (there has to be a better turn of phrase, but I need to get back to work!)

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