Some thoughts on Nano

I’m up and I’ve gotten a good amount of sleep. I’ve read some Nano board posts and I’m prepping to write some more. But I’ve had a few thoughts on beginning I thought I would share.

It was almost impossible for me to start off last night. I looked at the blank paper for probably 15 mins before I could just write. I’d already decided how I wanted the book to start out (though I hadn’t figured out if I wanted some kind of prologue or not) and I knew a good deal of the road I needed to travel. So why couldn’t I get going?

My first stumble was deciding if I needed to format it like you are suppose to do. You know the first page is blank but for the title and author name, pages are double spaced, etc. Finally I decided that since I was using google docs (in order to be able to share it with a few people) I wasn’t going to see the page breaks so that didn’t make much sense. So I put the name of the book at the very top, hopped a few lines and watched the curser blink.

Now what? I didn’t know my heroine’s name. Over the course of thinking about my plot I’d given her a few names but even those weren’t strong enough for me to even be able to remember them. I can’t start the book without knowing her name. So I pulled up a webpage of female baby names and clicked around until I finally settled on Ragan. I liked the name because it wasn’t typical and it had a strength to it that made me invision a strong character. This was a girl who didn’t take much crap, was fairly confident, maybe a little skeptical in a world even she had to admit was a little weird since she is infact an Empath. Ok…we can write.

No we can’t. *sigh* I had some friends in my chat room telling me, just start writing. Even if you are writing about the room you are in….’just start writing’. But it has to have a cool hook to the first sentence. I can’t start out “Ragan sat in a chair”. Who’d want to keep reading that?? And for that matter, I didn’t know I wanted to start with her sitting in a cramped van for that matter. It needed to cooler then that.

‘Don’t think, just write. Don’t edit, just write.’ From the people to my chat room, to the Nano posts flooding my email; everyone said just write. Don’t edit what you are writing, just write. Ok fine, but it’s not going to be good. *arms crossed stubbornly*

And so I started. But not even five words into the first sentence I was stuck. She was sitting in a chair and I was struggling to find the right words to describe it. I had an image of what I meant and I couldn’t pull the words out of my head. It needed to be described right or it would be interesting. ‘Wait, hold up. You’re doing it again.’ Oh yeah…I’m just suppose to write. I can go back later and describe the damn chair to my hearts content. It doesn’t matter that she was in a “chair” just so long as I had the basic thought to expand on LATER!! *sigh* Ok but you really won’t like this story. Even I don’t like this story. *firmly set mouth, eyes full of resentful doubt*

I got about 3 paragraphs written before my mind went blank. Ragan had shut the door and refused to tell me anymore for right now. So I re-read what I’d written. I didn’t FULLY edit!! I didn’t actually erase anything and in a few places added a few words giving a bit more depth. I felt ok about it. But they still didn’t want to flow. Ok I counted my words. This is all about words right?? 187. That didn’t seem right. So I spent about five minutes actually counting each word. Anyone see the problem? Yeah alright fine. I’m doing it again! *pout*

I tried to figure out what I wanted to say. I obviously wasn’t happy at only having written 187 words. I’m suppose to hit 1667 today at least. Trying to remember it didn’t have to be perfect I started again until I got another 100 words down. Ragan had let me get a peak but she was demanding I go to bed cause she wasn’t talking anymore. I would have to be happy with 287 words….for now. At least I’d sat down and written. I could have caved and went to bed first. Tell myself that I couldn’t think well enough to write. But I sat my butt down and did it. And that was the first step.

I think it was important to share this bit of info cause I’m sure there are more of you out there doing the same things I’m doing. They aren’t just blowing smoke when they tell you to write. I’m sure I’m going to have to break the old habits I have of trying to make it perfect as I go. They call it revision and editing for a reason. If you could write it all in one shot people would. They don’t, so we have to stop trying.

For those of you who want to kick me for writing this down and not my book. I think it’s just as valuable to share these thoughts as I get them, cause I’d be likely to forget and some poor person would be out there right now staring at their screen trying to find the perfect words. 🙂 Come on, let’s go do this the rough and dirty way! *nods head to the right*