Sunday 10 November 2013

Awkwardness accepted


...yesterday was a grind; but I had to write and write I did...

I couldn't even crack a 1000 words. I tried to beat myself up about it and soon realised that was also a waste of creative time and space. So I simply ACCEPTED the fact.

This morning before starting I decided I'd do some warming up. A bit of handwriting in my notebook to
 get me past any dragons waiting at the gate. It worked  wonders.

I was able to: 

  • check in with myself, 
  • mumble out some bullshit excuses in barely legible handwriting, 
  • slowly crank up the creative fire and 
  • set forth on my NaNoWriMo daily adventure with a clean pure wind in my sails. 


My novel effort traverses a decade of  the lives of several people; 
interwoven in ways they know not of.

As this is the FIRST TIME EVER for me at having a go at writing a novel I am torn between:

  •  bedding down too deeply into situation specific condensed time and place and 
  • weaving together the stories across distance of vaster time and space.

So I'm throwing in both. Tah Dah!
And they are emerging in interesting ways. 

It's the essence of those embedded moments that I need to explore to expose the depth and quirk of characters; but it's the across time that I need to expose the main theme that is emerging. (A theme that definitely was NOT PLANNED).

So today I felt like I could finish the story off with 3 or 4 paragraphs. They would loosely go something like this: She does this. Then he does that. Then they all meet.  And then this happens. The End.


And aha! BINGO!

I realised my sneaky little 'rush-to-the-goal post; get- the- job- done- as- quickly- as- you- can' writing dragon had nipped in under the drago-dar. 


Note to Dawn: SLOW DOWN. ENJOY THE PROCESS. DONT GET CAUGHT UP IN NANOWRIMO FEVER. KNOW YOURSELF.

I picked a word today to play with in my warm up (out of my Writing without a Parachute: The Art of Freefall book) I picked the word...
AWKWARDNESS.


I was feeling awkward, stuck. In fact as I started my NANO this morning it seems I was also resisting unpacking and instilling the awkwardness into a very awkward and unclear relationship in the story.

So today I got stuck in to that ...and realise that for my own sake I do have to offer more than 3 or 4 paragraphs to this story.
Today I wrote nearly 2,000 words in one hour and my current 



TOTAL WORD COUNT IS 18,800
(Yee-hah! :-))


TODAY'S AWKWARD MINI EXCERPT

Shaz wanted to ask if he was alright. She wanted to reach over and wipe his forehead with a tissue. She wanted to touch his forearm and reassure him. Most of all she wanted him to speak to her.


Her uncertainty piled emotion upon emotion. Her curiousity confused and confronted her more than his awkwardness. But she knew it was more than just her ridiculous desire to help him; even perhaps save him from his shyness and liberate him into the world. There was something much more intriguing about this man.



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