Sarah Avery (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dr_pretentious) wrote2005-11-18 03:08 am
dr_pretentious) wrote2005-11-18 03:08 am
In Which Sarah Refuses Orthodoxies of Several Kinds
Nine longhand pages, most produced after 1am by candlelight. Why candlelight? Because I'm out of lamp oil, of course.
600some words straight into laptop, most produced during write-in.
I understand the benefits of privileging quantity over quality in an exercise like Nanowrimo. And yes, the 1st draft must be shitty, no matter how it gets produced. But a lot of the standard word count boosting strategies that are in common use by my fellow Nanowrimo cultists just freeze my brain up, even though I know there are other people who feel unlocked by them. I'm quite content to fail, even to fail laughably, on the first pass, but I don't have it in me to try things I know take the story in the wrong direction. There is a difference between writing a rough draft and, on the other hand, writing badly on purpose. Thinking that I would have to write badly on purpose in order to make 50K by 30 November has been intermittently paralyzing over the past couple of days.
The story got unstuck again the moment I said to myself, well, I'd still like to hit the 50K mark by the end of the month, and I'm still aiming for that, but I'll do it my way or not at all. Practice, failure, and play are acceptable. Acting in bad faith is not.
I think I just blew it as a Nanowrimo cultist.
600some words straight into laptop, most produced during write-in.
I understand the benefits of privileging quantity over quality in an exercise like Nanowrimo. And yes, the 1st draft must be shitty, no matter how it gets produced. But a lot of the standard word count boosting strategies that are in common use by my fellow Nanowrimo cultists just freeze my brain up, even though I know there are other people who feel unlocked by them. I'm quite content to fail, even to fail laughably, on the first pass, but I don't have it in me to try things I know take the story in the wrong direction. There is a difference between writing a rough draft and, on the other hand, writing badly on purpose. Thinking that I would have to write badly on purpose in order to make 50K by 30 November has been intermittently paralyzing over the past couple of days.
The story got unstuck again the moment I said to myself, well, I'd still like to hit the 50K mark by the end of the month, and I'm still aiming for that, but I'll do it my way or not at all. Practice, failure, and play are acceptable. Acting in bad faith is not.
I think I just blew it as a Nanowrimo cultist.
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