Slow and steady.... what does it do again?

Well, here we are almost two weeks into NaNoWriMo. The bad news is that I'm almost hopelessly behind at just over 10k words. The good news, I'm sticking to it and making whatever progress I can. And, amazingly, I haven't given up that I can still make the final word count. I'll just have to write like a crazy person a few days to get caught up. We'll see.

In the comment section of my last post Beth said she can't imagine anything I write sucking. While I find that a thrilling compliment, I can assure you that not only can I write stuff that sucks, I'm quite adept at it. I'm not kidding. There was one point where I honestly wasn't sure what the main character should do next and I was exhausted. So the MC watched Oprah, ate cold cereal and took a nap. BORING. But it got me to the word count I wanted that day.

However, I've written at least one scene that gets me excited, so WOOT for that.

A famous author once wrote that you have at least a million words of garbage to write before anything truly wonderful comes out. I don't know if that's entirely true, but I get what he's saying. 990,000 to go! :)

Kickin' It at the Kick Off

One of my children's favorite DVDs is about a boy who is saving all of his money for weeks to buy new computer chips for his fighter robot. The more chips, the more power. He goes to the store to stare longingly at the display window, dragging his best friend along. His friend protests the pointless trips as he is not nearly so enamored with the robot games. The boy wanting the new chips pleads with his friend in a Vader-ish voice, "Come now, give in to the dork side."

This is kind of how I felt this past weekend. The NaNoWriMo kick off party in my area was so close to my house I felt guilty about the thought of not attending. Plus there was going to be pizza. When I pictured the types of people who might be there I wasn't really envisioning other people "like me." I let my mental picture be completely stereotypical. I won't tell you what I was picturing, but I will tell you that I went and found that my stereotype was almost completely correct. But you know what? I just went along with it and gave into my own dork side. I had a pretty good time. I didn't meet any lifelong friends, but it was fun to feel a part of something. And I won a door prize. Probably the best thing I took from it was how everyone really really had low expectations of what they could churn out in a month and it was OKAY. That was what stopped me cold last year. I couldn't believe how crappy it was. But this year I'm wading through the crap and just enjoying myself. Low and behold, I'm almost 5k into it on the third day.

I just might do it!