No video as promised, due to technical snafus. But here’s what I would have said:
We’re halfway through NaNoWriMo (if you don’t know, that’s National Novel Writing Month’s 30-day race to complete a first draft, along with tens of thousands of others, worldwide).
How’s it going?
Personally, I’m behind the pace, at only 14,500 words (I should be well over 20,000 by now). I have a crew of writing “buddies”–about 6 of us now (we had more at the start), and at last check here’s how the other five clock in:
8,000, 16,500, 16,500, 20,000, 32,700. All over the map.
One of the reasons I’m lagging (I hate to admit) is that I’m writing slowly, against all my own advice, to produce graceful, “acceptable” prose. When you teach and coach, it’s a hard not to.
If I want to “win” I’ll have to increase my daily word total sharply, and that will mean getting sloppy and not giving a damn. I’m determined to try, but if it it doesn’t happen, as I told my buddies, I won’t be upset because I’m excited by what I’m getting.
Most important, I’m not letting a day go by “dry,” even if it means I clock only 300 or 400 words.
Yes, I’m set on reaching NaNoWriMo’s “winning” word total by November 30, but if I don’t, I’ll still have accomplished my purpose–to blast me out of didactic and into creative mode, and most important, to give real life to an idea that’s lived nowhere but in the dim, closeted space of my private thoughts. Until now.
More shortly on “how to win” NaNoWriMo.
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