An Itinerant Mind

November postmortem

That bit about this blog being irregular is particularly factual. I was too busy in November, trying to write 50,000 words, which I just about managed, but since then I have felt rather 'written out'. Still, after a break, I am now feeling ready to continue writing.

I've been made a Preferred Author. This made me extremely happy. After I'd read the email informing me, several times, I was bouncing about in my seat and rubbing my hands together. Yes, I do get childishly excited by things like that. It made my day/week and month, and also felt like Christmas had come early.

Most importantly, it made me want to write. To write more, and to write more often.

I felt that I learned quite a lot of useful things from the combined October Preparation, and NaNoWriMo itself in November. One thing is having goals. I badly wanted to succeed in the goals I had set myself. WDC has a Weekly Goals thread run by The StoryMistress, and since beginning the October Prep, I have been trying to use that as a means of focussing my efforts. Not that I have set goals every week, but I am trying to do so.

The October Prep month put together a set of tasks designed to get a novel planned out and ready to write, it also created a superb atmosphere of support and friendly interaction. From it I produced an A5 folder with separate sheets for each important scene that I wanted to write. This allowed me to determine that dependencies and consequences were followed up. Useful for avoiding plot holes and errors. Yet when I started writing, the story took on a life of its own. My bad guy wasn't, requiring some rethinking of how I'd achieve some of the plot.

I grew to hate the story. Largely I thought it a mess. Having had time to reflect on this, I have reached a theory as to why. I was writing too fast. Getting to 50K was a good target, I have never managed above half that before. But what I have written is awful. I take a lot of care with most of my writing. I will for instance search to find the correct brand of cigarettes would be smoked in some particular time and place. I have investigated drapers shops in London in the early 20th Century, or whether there are ebony goth girls, (there are and they look fantastic).

The other problem I have is that having reached 50K, I stopped. The story isn't finished, but I haven't written any more of it this month. But. I am going to. My Weekly Goals next week will reflect this. Firstly I need to get a grip on what I have written, put it in order, and link that to my outline I found not being able to easily find what I'd written a pain in November: What day did I write about that? What did I say then? Because everything was saved with only the date, I might spend ten minutes reading back, trying to find the particular conversation I needed. I will address this, when I continue, and when I next use the preparation method, because I'm convinced of its usefulness.

Back to the writing too fast bit. I think the solution might be to set my targets differently. I'm considering a week on, week off idea. Spend one week with a word count goal of 10K words. Then a week reviewing and revising that, and tying it in to the planned out novel, tweaking as required, then another burst of 10K, and so on. Writing something I read and think 'uggh! this is execrable' is not good. I need time to follow my researching impulses. That's where I add the detail, and often get some great ideas. Did you know that Sir Francis Drake was thought to be a magician in league with demons, and that Spanish sailors thought he had a magic map that showed him where all their ships were? That fitted perfectly with my planned novel, but I found it checking some facts about where he had travelled and when.

Changing the subject, I have been enjoying giving out Merit Badges as my own wonderfully inverted version of an advent calendar. Each day I pick a recipient and send them a seasonal merit badge. Fifteen down and ten to go. I haven't preplanned who will get one, so each day I get to choose. Why do I enjoy this? Ahh! that would be telling.