NaNoWriMo Day 14

 

Writing a novel is not for the faint of heart is an old saying that I first heard, well I can't remember when, one that I did not pay much attention to because I was naive and eager. After writing a dozen genre novels, from Historical romance to Regencies to Horror to Mainstream, I realized that writing and publishing with traditional NY houses and staying published was indeed hard work and not for the faint of heart. I am amused. When I quit writing for various reasons, I never expected to pursue traditional publishing again. After all, I could do anything I wanted, such as plant and later paint flowers, write bad poetry, or be a perpetual student and in many ways, I am that perpetual student, but the year before my husband discovered he had cancer, I told him and myself that I wanted to write this ambitious fairy project. He laughed at me. I remember his words, he asked me why I wanted to sit for hours at a desk, by myself in a room, and work my little heart out for years, maybe he added, on something I could probably sell, but would make little money from. Time is everything, he told me.  Time matters. I had spent Time writing. I had spent Time teaching children. I had spent Time with children and with him. I was free. Why write when Money in publishing is always a gamble, for the author and for the publisher, too.  If you have read this blog, you know that my husband ran out of time. He died and it took me a long time to recover from his dying and death. Now, I might run out of time, too. But when I gathered my senses after Covid. I began to plan, seriously. I was indeed going to write The Ambitious Fairy Project.

The thing is I had worked hard in publishing for many years. I knew exactly what kind of work it would take to write a novel like this, because for me, person of mediocre skills but wild imagination, writing such a novel was and is ambitious. Just the other day, I thought, I cannot do this. I even had to stop for a day and rework the plot a bit, because I decided to change a couple of things. I went back and revised everything to support those changes and then I fell into a kind of depression looking at my plot board, because despite making great progress, I had many more pages to write.

But quitting is not an option.

Now is the time. Hard work on a novel is something few writers really want to talk about. You aren't going to write a novel in NaNoWriMo, you are going to write maybe 50,000 words and if you do not plan and have pretty good skills, you are going to write a really crappy draft. I do not like crappy drafts. I never use them. My plot board is a what other people call a crappy draft. Been there. Done that. And my plot boards are pretty damn good. And so my drafting (yes I do revise all the time) is pretty damn good, too. But it is very hard work. It takes me at least half an hour to write a single page according to my drafting standards. A revised page is an hour. And that's fine if I keep it like that. Laughing. So lots of hours go into writing a 500 page novel. OMG. 125,000+ words is very ambitious for me. You might see a lot of them out there, but as someone who worked inside publishing, too. 125,000 words up is risky business. New authors should write 350 page novels that might creep toward 400 pages. No kidding. I just gave some good advice that I somehow can't keep for myself. Of course, I do know what upmarket fantasy novel is. And maybe that will help me. Maybe not. I write with a reader in mind and this time, I have lots of readers.  There are so many wonderful things I could be doing besides writing. I could watch Netflix, I could play on social media and write threads on fashion like other wannabe writers. I could plan a trip to Italy or spend my money going to see Placebo next year. Nope. Not happening. I am going to write a novel. 

Most, if not all days, I am going to get up, make my tea, and walk into this room and type words for several hours, living in the land of make believe. That's a sort of insanity. It's not even rational. Why? So I can call myself a writer or author. So I can pretend that I am doing something worthwhile. Hell, I don't know. My therapist says I need to make meaning, beautiful meaning that is worthwhile to me and that my writing is a form of self expression. That I have something valuable to say. And maybe I do.

We will all find out one day.

It took me 14 days, working extremely hard (I have backaches, headaches, I sleep badly and my eyes are dry) to write 25,374 words, which is set up at 250 words most pages. That's a 100 pages. I won't be able to sustain this pacing. I am not going to lie about it. I feel myself slowing down. I had to stop one day for plot and some minor revision. I had to stop one day to go do my baby boy's birthday party. I used that day to pull out all my Christmas decorations and set up the trees. These are things I want to do, things I will not do without. If I do continue at this pace, I will do my 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo. It will be quite an accomplishment.

I hope to do that.

But my new draft of this novel will be less than half done. I will have to continue writing through the holidays and I do have some plans already in place. I see myself writing through January and finishing this draft somewhere around then.

Then guess what. I let it rest, and I start again.

Day 14, NaNoWriMo, 25,374 words.

P.S. This is not an except from my journal, I have had no time to do a journal this week.