What Up Wednesday 11 Nov 2015

For my second instalment of What Up Wednesday, I can offer some information about my current NaNoWriMo project.

I’m always second guessing what project I should be working on. Last week I decided to work on the Wattpad story I started on vacation in September. Of course, the moment that I made the decision to work solely on this story for a whole month, the second guessing came back.

“Why not work on this book? That other book? Why?”

But then it hit me in the most simplest way – it doesn’t matter.

I can work on one thing for a month and ignore the other story ideas I have for a while. There’s always next month and the month after to go back to them. What I didn’t work on last month, or even what I was working on, can wait a month while I do this gut instinct response project.

It doesn’t matter.

So far I have 4383 words of the small 25,000 word goal I set myself for my own personal NaNoWriMo experience. I think putting things in perspective and aiming for smaller goals sort of makes it easier on me. Too often I have the grandiose idea of what the whole series and all the characters will do. Granted, that’s fun in itself, but it means trying to work out too much all at once. This way, I’m taking it in smaller chunks.

It’s been too easy for me to get involved with the routine of work, even though there’s not much going on at the library at all. Without the word count aims, no matter how small for each day, I would only have the day job to place my aspirations in. That’s just not enough.

Steve and I have been talking about how day jobs suck the creative opportunities out of it for us. At the end of the day, what do we have to show for what we’ve done, especially if we’re just working on something that someone else has given us as a project to do. We’re a small piece of the puzzle there. At home, with our own work, we can take pride in doing our own book or our own artwork. There’s more self satisfaction and pride in that kind of work.

Anyway, for my book inspiration I’ve been reading The Secrets We Keep and Life and Death. I’ve been using Word, Scrivener, Wattpad, and Evernote to get my word count down. I even added my story to Inkitt for the NaNo contest. Wish me luck!

Writing by the seat of my pants

Write. That’s the most important thing, right?

I was watching a documentary on Ian Fleming, and his advice about writing was to just get the story down.

Writing about 2,000 words in three hours every morning, 'Casino Royale' dutifully produced itself. I wrote nothing and made no corrections until the book was finished. If I had looked back at what I had written the day before I might have despaired.
~ Ian Fleming

Now, my biggest hang-ups are indecisiveness. What should I write about? Is what I’m writing the right thing I should be writing at the moment? Is this anything anyone would read? Would I read this? Etc.

So, what I started working on today was what I started working on in Wattpad while I was back home in Florida in September. I’ve always wanted something contemporary and girlie like Gossip Girl or Pretty Little Liars, and the beach made a perfect setting.

But I have no plot. I have no outline. Just a basic idea. I’m just going to write stuff and make a huge mess and see where it leaves me. I’m not expecting to get to 50k this month, maybe 25k if I’m lucky. But that’s fine for me at the moment.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a great NaNoWriMo. Keep on writing. The finish line will be there, so we have to keep running, walking, and even crawling toward it.