National Novel Writing Month: Day 1
I wasn’t expecting today to be intimidating, because I’ve been preparing (fleshing out concepts, working on my story idea, outlining plot, developing characters) for the entire month of October. But it was. Last night I had a last minute panic attack and saved several Word documents with scene prompts as a contingency. Still, I experienced a bit of the dreaded “blank screen syndrome.”
What surprised me most was that I seem unable to write my novel chronologically. (I’m curious if this is common – please tell me in the comments). I wrote a sad goodbye that happens later in my novel, and then moved backward in the story to when those two characters meet for the first time. Eventually I wrote the scene I had in my outline as the opening, but now I think it may actually come right after the “real” opening. Since I won’t be editing until December 1, I’m letting it stand as is.
Also, today’s quota of 1700 words was not accomplished in one sitting. I started, stopped, took a break, did something totally unrelated to writing, started again and then repeated that sequence a few more times. I have scheduled time to work on my novel before I start my day, so this does not bode well for the week day when I have paying work that I must accomplish.
I’ll let you know later in the week how I handle that hurdle. At least for today, I’m pretty pleased with my progress.
Thank you to Debbie Ohi of Inkygirl.com for the use of the above cartoon.
