Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Again, NaNo!

26,099 words. Past midpoint. We'll see...

In one of the pep-talk e-mails to my addy, a NaNo moderator talks about freewriting or what I call free flow. Looking at the other available NaNo novels in progress, however, I find none of us is freewriting, but we are writing fast using an idea or an outline with the goal of finishing the stuff by the end of the month.

Actually, I am used to freewriting. Every day I write about ten minutes, longhand, with no idea or goal, but this won't do for a novel. Freeflow is only good opening up the passageways, like a nose spray when you have a cold. Then, you'll still have to breathe on your own. Fresher the air, the better.

I guess some writers start anything new with stupid dreams about it. When I started my NaNo novel, I put it in the general fiction type, but when the psychological twisting and turning took hold, I changed it to literary fiction. Now, the action has taken over again, and I am wondering if I should go back to general fiction. I never thought I'd end up confused about the type, genre or whatever.

On the plus side, I am even writing faster now, and truly with reckless abandon, since the story is following its own course. I may or may not like where it is going, but it is going. Albeit blindly. Then, I think, that is the idea behind NaNo. In any case, I started enjoying who the characters are as I am feeling their feelings.

One thing to keep in mind. I must not worry about the finish line. It looks like there'll be a finish line, but the story may collapse dead when it reaches there, like an untrained marathon runner. But then, what is revision for?

Chances are we writers will learn new ways while doing this, and we'll find out which ones will work best for us in different circumstances. So, I am taking this as an exercise in itself...even if it is taking so much of my time and mind-power. Not that my mind-power is in leaps and bounds either.