Wednesday 28 December 2011

The December Desert

So....am quickly approaching the end of December. All I can say is hallelujah! This year, as a result of torturing my family with my  first (and possibly last) successful  NaNovember, I agreed to NOT TO WRITE  at all during December. And I have stuck to that promise.

Mad you say?
Yep!

But....come November 30th, my nerves  were frazzled, my house was a bombsite, and my husband and children were feeling woefully neglected. This all because I decided, with a part time job and an appalling typing speed of only 27 words a minute, to try my hand at 50k words in one month.

I can happily report that I did it.
I can also report that the resulting manuscript is  the most appalling piece of dreck anyone on planet earth ever produced.

Things I learned doing Nano:
1) a Typing speed of only 27 words a minute is a serious hindrance to someone who wishes to write professionally. Even if I never do Nano again, am gifting myself with a typing course in the New Year to address the weakness.
2) when short on word count and ideas, a gratuitous (and quite possibly thrown out in the edit) sex scene between 2 completely unlikely characters supplies a great giggle, refreshes the writing juices and can account for A LOT of words!
3) online support groups are invaluable but also verrrrry distracting. Especially as I am 100% certain that they all type faster than I do and can afford to blather on FB chat.
4) my family are like delicate orchids and really suffer when they don't receive the requisite amount of TLC. Faster typing and better time management will help this in future.
5) a dirty house is a good excuse and a great distraction...in an ideal world, dishes and laundry would type for me as I cleaned, or possibly clean up themselves. Any inventors out there?
6) Writing that much fries your synapses.

I have graduated from the Crash Test Dummy School of Writing.

I am emerging from the dry boring December desert of no writing, hopefully refreshed and ready to write again. This time, more slowly, choosing every single word for the beauty of it instead of the word count.

I can’t wait.