October 30, 2007

• Counting Down the Hours ...

  I have 9 pounds of chocolate.
  I have coffee.
  I have 2 dozen ink pens in a variety of colors
  I have 2 spiral notebooks for notes
  I have my 2007 Word manual just in case there's something I don't know how to do
  I have stocked up on frozen foods so the kids can feed themselves if necessary
     (it will be necessary)
  I have my story idea
  I have my journal about half done
  I have fuzzy socks to keep my feet warm
  I have my dictionary (23 pounds), my thesaurus (8 ounces), and my Wikipedia bookmark (priceless)
  I have bubble bath
  I have my alarm clock set for my writing day to begin in the wee dark hours of morning.

  is there anything else that you can think of that I need to write this book?

  Years ago, when I was first starting down the road of authoring, I had these Barbara Cartlandish ideas about penning a novel, that it was something done on a chaise lounge with an ostentatious little yapping dog beneath my frou frou slippered feet. 

  Then I actually started writing and I've learned that the thing that I need more than anything else is "Butt in Chair Time".  And a word count.  Even if it's not good writing, as long as I'm producing words, moving toward the conclusion of the story, I can do it.  If I have something on the paper, I can always edit and revise and tighten and tone and ... you get the picture.  It's when the story is all in my head that I have a problem.

  NaNoWirMo - National Novel Writing Month provides me the structure I need to get it done.  The rules of NaNo are simple.  You start your novel on November 1.  And you write every day for a month.  By the end of the month, you should have at least a 50,000 word rough draft.  It takes 1,668 words per day to reach that goal.  But it can be done.  I've done it.  More than once. 

  One of the essentials for me to succeed is to begin well.  So my word count goal for the first day is 4,000.  I know that's more than double what I "need" but if I'm a little ahead, I can handle a set back like last year when my flash drive was stolen on November 8 and I had to start over.  I didn't have time to whine about it, I had to get in there and DO it.   I was helped because I had emailed portions of the work in progress to my best friend for review so I was able to build on the parts that were saved out there.

  And I'm reminding myself of that right now because that's another vitamin in my writing nutritional requirements, the knowledge that I CAN do it.  I have done it under difficult conditions.  I can do it under better ones.  The book I'm writing this year, has the potential to be far and away the best so far.  I'm excited. 

  Do you have a burning desire to write a book?  You still have two days to sign up and get started.  You don't have to have everything on the list I created to do it.  You do have to have a determination to put your butt in the chair for as long as it takes to hit that word count every day.

  If you'd like to be a part of the email group that receives encouragement from me, please EMAIL me at quiltnmomi@hotmail.com.  I'm still having trouble with the NaNo website and I haven't been able to add everyone as a buddy.  But if I have your email address, we're good to go. 

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  • 11:24 am
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