cheerfulSo, what started this? Well, for those few, who don't already know, November is National Novel Writing Month. But let me be clear, I do not do NaNo. I actually hate NaNo. I've always felt offended by the idea of "quantity, not quality" that the project promotes. I don't want even my first draft of a story to be "crap". And I could never start and finish a novel in a month. I just don't work that way. I couldn't work that way. It would upset me too much.
But anyway, I did decide that the idea of a month for novels and novelists was a good idea, so I started off celebrating in 2007 by writing a little every week. Well, that's pretty easy for me now. This year, I've even moved on to usually writing a good 5 to 10 pages a week. Maybe, that still sounds pretty low to other novelists, but trust me... for me, this is amazing. So, what's the next step? Writing a little every day. And so far, I've done it. Even though, one of the days, I only wrote a few paragraphs.
Mostly, I've been working on Dreaming in Shadow. I really want to get that story moving because it's really close to the same number of pages as Miss Masquerade, and I am pretty set on finishing - or at least, publishing - Dreaming in Shadow first. Dreaming in Shadow was the idea I had that made me think, "This will be my first real novel.". I don't want to break that intention, even though I've been really enjoying writing Miss Masquerade lately.
But I'm enjoying writing Dreaming in Shadow, too. I finished a really dark chapter a couple of days ago. It took a lot of of me: it was lengthy and emotional. But I read it over, and I think I did pretty well with it. I also enjoyed writing it, even though it took a lot of time and effort. I can't wait to show it to Jill.
Well, that's all for now... I should start thinking about what I want to work on today. But hey, if you are doing NaNo this year, I wish you lots of luck. Just because I hate NaNo doesn't mean I hate you!
