NaNoWriMo doesn't work for me because of timing. November is the middle of football season and since the dashingly handsome sidekick is a football coach, I morph into a single mom. (Thankfully only for a few months of the year.)
I write first drafts like a NaNoWriMo participant, however. The muse has chosen my NaNoWriMo month to be parts of April and May this time around. I had a story on my chest, and it's been sitting there grooming itself for months, leaving claw marks on my heart.
I decided to sit down the other night and start it, and WHOA ... I haven't been able to stop. I'm talking thousands of words a day and I'm not even trying.
I love this stage. It's so beautiful because you just puke your guts out on paper and you don't have to worry about whether it smells good or not. You get it all out. Then you go back later and clean up ... and the clean up is a lot more fun than mopping up real vomit, I promise.
Besides the NaNoWriMo-esque puke fest, I'm critiquing a friend's manuscript (hi, Kelly!) and slowly, fearfully approaching the querying stage with SEAGULL RISING. It's hard to believe SR won't be my WiP anymore. It really is like kissing your baby and sending her off to kindergarten. "CAN THIS REALLY BE HAPPENING? ... Maybe she's not ready ... maybe I should give her another year...."
But inside I know she's (almost) ready to fly. And she won't be able to learn if I keep her a prisoner on my computer. Right? Of course right.
So, where are you in the process? And if you're not in the process, would you like to comment on all my mixed metaphors? Which one was your favorite? (hee hee)
**Oh, and by the way, I got my purse back on Saturday! Everything was in it, too! I am SO THANKFUL! Thank you to those of you who asked about it.**
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ReplyDeleteI had a story on my chest, and it's been sitting there grooming itself for months, leaving claw marks on my heart.
ReplyDeleteI purred when I red this one. It felt so right.
I keep saying the same thing about November for NaNoWriMo. I host a big crowd for Thanksgivin every year and being right before the holidays, it never happens.
ReplyDeleteI'm speaking at a retreat the first week of May and then after that, I'm going to try to make summer my time for a "puke-fest." : )
I struggle so much with being way too critical of my WIP's so this time I'm just going to vomit on the page and not hold back. LOL.
I can always go back later and mop up, right? I'm so excited to get started. I just hope the story will still be there for me once I'm finally able to write.
Thanks for being such a great inspiration to me. <3 <3
I love it when a new WIP just pours out of your in buckets! (Mind you, it's only happened to me once, for about a week, and then I had to set that manuscript aside and go back to Bob.) I'll look forward to reading it someday! And definitely let me know when you start querying SEAGULL RISING...
ReplyDeleteAmy, I love the title, SEAGULL RISING! Reminds me a little of my favorite seagull book (you know the one), where great heights are reached with prayer and effort.
ReplyDeleteIt's great that you have another WiP--that way, you won't be checking e-mail every 5 minutes for query responses.
Where's my WiP? I'm still amping--28 chapters of amps--then off to another beta reader / editor before querying again.
Oooh, I love the new story stage too, though I am such a nitpicky writer, I edit as I go along ... the one time I puked out my novel (and it still took 3 months), it was a rotten mess. So rotten that I don't know what to do with it. I wish I could vomit pearls.
ReplyDeleteI'm revising a fairly clean first draft right now for pacing, but know I'll need a couple more passes before it's ready to go out to beta readers.
Enjoy, enjoy this phase.
I love your description of this, and I wish that stories came out of me that quickly. I'm more of a slow and steady tortoise when it comes to writing, but eventually I get there. I'm just about done with my first draft. I thought I'd finish it last week, but then I got sick, and some things came up over at my dad's. I'm just about well though.
ReplyDeleteAnd I totally get the single mom thing. Ben coaches basketball at the middle school.
Happy writing!
This just happened to me. I had planned to first my first draft of the WIP sometime in May, but it just poured out of me and I finished last night! Gotta love the first drafts for being unpredicatble : )
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