NaNoWriMo Day 7
Welcome to my little experiment, where I lift the curtain on my writing process during NaNoWriMo 2023 in an effort to feel less alone. If you’re also doing NaNoWriMo, feel free to add me as a buddy!
daily summary 📅
Today I made the executive decision that I had to go back and rewrite the first four chapters of GUARDIANS 3 properly instead of floundering about in the wilderness, hoping I’ll find a way through the muddle. Having spent the past few days writing out the long, shitty synopsis for each chapter, I at least now have a better of idea of what the point of each chapter is. I’m not going to erase what I’ve written before, so every new word is still going to count toward my NaNoWriMo 50K total, which feels a bit like cheating, but you know what? It’s my NaNoWriMo and I can cheat if I want to.
Also drafting real words suck. Word vomit is so much easier.
Alas.
daily process ⏱️
8:04AM. New day, new opportunity for a good writing day. Pollux is at daycare, Castor is home with me. Castor’s morning walk is done, coffee is made, and my meds are taken. Now to catch up on some late night comedy talk show clips before firing out what I want to do today.
8:44AM. Coffee and cold pizza for breakfast. Ah yes, the diet of a writer.
9:00AM. I think I will have to bite the bullet and just go back and rewrite. Right now I have 11,000 words of a hot mess that is part long, shitty synopsis, part word vomit with no point. But I do now have a clearer picture of the first four chapters and their respective points, so I think my goal for today is to rewrite as much of the first chapter as possible and to see if I can’t actually get into Redacted’s voice. I’m going to leave the 11,000 shitty words as is because they count toward my word count goal and just add the rewrite on top of it. Who knows, maybe by the time I fix things I will have caught up to the words needed for NaNoWriMo.
9:25AM.
introduced me to Goblin Tools and my ADHD is looking at this like…”You! Will you be the one to change my life????” Probably not, but I do like that it can break down what I need to do into subtasks and provide time estimates for them.9:31AM. When will Castor learn to tell time. His long walk shouldn’t be for another hour but he’s wreaking havoc in my office from boredom. Gaah why.
Anyway, time to start brainstorming my approach to rewriting chapter one. The long shitty synopsis got me to the point, but now I gotta figure out the signposts along the way.
10:10AM. Castor is being a little shit. Ugh. Well, 352 new words written, so I suppose now is as good a time as any for his long walk.
11:08AM. Long walk taken, shower performed, Castor properly tuckered out. Now time to transition back into writing mode. It always takes like 20 minutes to transition between modes, but I’m hoping to get at least one more focus interval in before we have to leave for Castor’s training appointment.
2:17PM. Castor did extremely well at his training session (and was just a little bit stoned from his CBD treat) and now I’m back. I gotta do some yoga poses first because my lower back is absolutely killing me. I also feel vaguely sick to my stomach for some reason so maybe I gotta lie down for a bit.
4:12PM. Naturally after doing some yoga poses, when I went to lie down on the couch, I passed out. Oops. Well, gotta drink this can of Monster and catch up on writing for today.
4:29PM. 726 new words. Oh, I just realized [redacted word vomit.]
5:16PM. Okay, talked through some story points with Lemon and if [redacted word vomit].
5:38PM. 1147 new words. Ugh, how is it pitch black already? Night writing is the worst. Well, guess I should go pick up Pollux from daycare now anyway.
7:09PM. Picked up Pollux, fed the bois, got Popeyes for dinner, and now it’s time to sit down and catch up on my word count. There are about 500 words left, which I can probably do in a good push.
7:30PM. Man, why is the writing pace so much slower when you are drafting real words instead of just word-vomiting onto the page???? 1413 words. I am so close. SO CLOSE.
8:10PM. 1965 words. Got a little bit carried away there, but I made it all the way to the end of this chapter rewrite, huzzah! Now to collapse from both overthinking and food coma.
That’s Day 7 of NaNoWriMo done! How about y’all? Any successes? Failures?