* Take a nap and have a dream where one of your minor characters makes a case for importance in your plot and then proceeds to tell you how she dies. Get up and write that chapter.
* Get so enamored with one chapter that you just want to edit, edit, edit instead of write, write, write.
* Use Find/replace to change all contractions to two words, thereby increasing word count by 50 words.
* Think of ways to color code your characters to aide in building a mind map of the plot lines. Spend too much time on which color is just right for each character. Be glad that you have a set of 64 colored pencils.
* Recalculate every hour how many more words you have to write to ‘catchup’, then whine about your swine flu setback.
* Check FB again in case something important has happened. Be amused by swiney cartoon son has posted on your wall. Decide that one of your characters liked Winnie the Pooh as a child. Consider this research.
* Peruse the NaNoWriMo Forums and wonder if everybody is writing either FanFic or Sci-Fi/Fantasy. Have an episode of self-doubt that you shouldn’t be doing this.
* Remind yourself that it’s just a goal to get a first draft completed.
* Realize at 11:17 that due to the time change the perfect sunbeam for napping is almost in place. Move laptop to bed. Realize 45 minutes later that the sun doesn’t move as quickly as you thought.
* Think some more about your characters. Maybe even write a character sketch.
* Write a blog post to tell your 5 readers that your word count is now 6828, which isn’t bad considering that you didn’t write for 4 days.
* Wonder if bullet pointed blogs posts count towards word count if you can attribute them to a character? After all, 392 words would increase your count to 7220, leaving you with exactly 1860 more words per day to write to meet 50,000 by Nov 30th. Consider that would be 380 words if you removed the contractions.
* Take another nap. The sunbeam is now perfectly aligned with bedroom window.
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8 comments:
You are a genius. : )
This made me laugh! And reminded me of the Nanowrimo I joined a few years ago. It seems that everyone obsesses on wordcount stats. Don't give up!
Anne, I think your comment may be disproved by the mathmatical error in the 2nd to last bullet point. I think it was a typo, but I'm reminded of what I said when my 6th grade homeroom teacher asked me if my math grade was correct (because it was so much lower than the other subjects). I told him that I didn't know, because I didn't understand percentages. Apparently I sometimes can't count and add either. Where was the Count Von Count when I needed him?
Oh, funny! I would totally be counting the words too, and calculating how long it would take to catch up and changing the contractions around to get more words. I would be checking Facebook obsessively too (wait, I already do that!). Oh, dear. I hope the writing goes well, all distractions aside!
So which Character was writing this post? And what's their story? And what have they done with the real Cam? (though it sounds an awful lot like you)
And are you a NaNoWriMo character that's writing itself?
Go Cam! Go! I know you can do it :)
So, how'd it all end up in the end? I think, if nothing else, this one post was worth the effort. Your color-coding your characters reminds me of all the index cards I decided to create for each of my characters that provides all sorts of details for each one (some details found in the book, others merely in my imagination). A wonderful way to occupy "novel-writing time" without actually writing anything.
lols...hilarious..you know as a copywriter i seem to have done these tricks in my earlier days...now when i was reading this i was laughing at myself....now i rarely get a chance to get bored...I was recently flipping through one of my copywriting books which i purchased from A1Books and there the author somewhere writes about how when he was a junior, used to do tricks to make himself look busy and hardworking...i felt the same while reading your post ;) good work!!!
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