Baby steps

Okay.

I've decided not to post my novel here because... well, I'm not that technologically adept and can't figure out after a week of trying how to make my posts condensed. You know the kind - where there's a brief introduction and then a 'Read more' link that you click to read the rest of the post. Yeah, I can't get it to work.

So I've posted, and will be posting, what I've written so far to my website. This blog will be used mainly for me to bitch and moan about how terrible of a writer I am and to try to drum up readership of my novel and other writing.

Now, on to business. The first day was yucky - that's the only way I can think to describe it. By 7pm last night, seconds before I started to write, I still had no idea what I was going to do, outside of my infamous 'one character name'. So I just started, and believe me, what resulted is so far from good, it's not funny.

In everything I've ever written, be it short stories, novels, essays or news stories from my days as a student journalist, the beginning is easily the worst part. I may know what I want to say, but I have no idea how to get there - I could have a map and still get lost. If you take a peek at what I wrote last night, you'll see (or at least I do) that I have some good ideas, but I just haven't gone anywhere with them or dropped them in the name of moving the story along. I did 2000+ words last night - I still have 48,000+/- to go; where am I trying to get to so fast?

One thing I like about Nano is that, for me, it brings to light some very big weaknesses in my writing. Beginnings, dialogue (although, that is more hit-and-miss, if you ask me), plot and themes are all big problems I have to deal with. I don't think taking a class and learning from someone else would benefit me - trial and error will probably be the best method.

I'm not going to write today, but I will write tomorrow and Thursday and Friday (I'm not writing tonight because I have to take care of some iTunes business {setting up a proper playlist ;)} and the cursed election has me checking CNN every three seconds). I'm not writing on Saturdays at all this month because I work and I go out with my dad and sister in the evenings and I'm usually working at 7am the next day. So... if you break down 50,000 by 30 days, that's 1,667 words per day. For me, with my 6-days a week maximum writing, that's 1,923 at least a day. And I have every Friday off and alternating Mondays, so I can pull late-nighters to fill up word counts if I need to. My biggest challenge won't be lack of time - it'll probably end up being lack of will to finish this cursed novel.

Off to fix my iTunes playlist and check the results... agai.