This post, by Andrea King Collier, originally appeared on SheWrites on 11/11/10. Hopefully it’ll offer some help and support to Publetarians who are also NaNoWriMo-ers at the halfway point.
As Andrea Collier, our NaNoWriMo correspondent, nails the near-half-way mark (20,400 words), she has an epiphany about her protagonist and turns to Scrivener, Pandora, a digital voice recorder, and…oh yes, old-fashioned notebook and pen.
DAY 11: Oh She Writers and SheWriMos, all the cake is gone. Even though I am clipping away at my 50,000 words, I feel like I’m hitting the wall. Time for writer’s toys and distractions.
Okay, I should not be feeling like this until next week, which is the half-way point. But I’m getting ADD. I’m still laying down words at the rate I promised myself– steady and messy. But SheWriters, I am back to wondering what I was thinking. I am beyond the put butt in chair phase. The glow of focus is blurry. And sometimes I embed stupid stuff in my work just to keep me interested. Like today, I added a section called “It was a dark and stormy night.” I listed all the things that could happen on a dark and stormy night. This was not good. It was just a diversion. I notice that I play computer Scrabble more. I curse at the computer more. And the critic is really getting to me. I curse at her too. (But as fellow She Writer Tayari Jones points out, criticism can hurt, but it’s essential!)
I am now at 20,400 words. Can you believe it? So technically I am almost at the halfway mark. Consistency has its virtues. Consistency is like the NY City Marathon. It’s worse than that. It is like running the marathon blindfolded, with a drunk seeing-eye dog. I don’t have a clue where I’m going—except that I’m going to 50,000 words or bust. I have gained three stressed out pounds. And I split open my toenail after kicking the scale.
So let’s talk about writer’s toys and tools. It’s a topic of discussion over at GalleyCat, and I know I can no longer be singularly focused. I eventually have to find ways to trick myself into writing my NaNoWriMo words. I have had a hard time posting anything on their site. So that is not on my list of fun diversions this week. But I did get a terrific, inspirational pep talk from the fabulous writer Aimee Bender. Her words will knock out any writer, NaNoWriMo or not.
The toys and tools:
Read the rest of the post on SheWrites.