I can’t believe it’s already here.
2020 has been a mess on all counts, and to tell the truth, I’m still rattled from the election yesterday. I’ve actually stayed offline for the most part, so pardon me if I don’t say much about it. NaNoWriMo 2020 is an oasis from the dumpster fire that is the rest of the year, and I’m trying to preserve that so I’m ready for future days.
Current Word Count
When I set up my word count calendar, it told me that I needed to be at 1,617 words by the end of Tuesday. Happily, I can report we’ve crossed 2,178 words, going above and beyond!
But am I sacrificing quality for speed? I’m already starting to wonder… 😬
Favorite Line
Even if the overall quality of my blades has suffered in this forge, I make sure to keep their edges sharp. When the mirror men inevitably decide I deserve the pain of another severed finger, it makes it far less cumbersome to reattach the digit when the cut is clean. As much as I suspect they would like to leave me with a series of bloody stumps across my hands, work in the forge requires some degree of dexterity. They’ll settle for making me know pain, making me anticipate it. And if they leave a few scars in the process, so be it. It’s power, threatening me with a torture they can repeat endlessly.
I hate how well I understand it.
Me, making my MC miserable right out of the gate, even though I still can’t settle on a good name for her? Oh, you know it. Nothing like cutting off fingers and pasting them back on with a bit of quick and painful magic, right?
Other than this line, though, I’m not thrilled with my words so far. Nothing is coming out quite like the fragments I’ve imagined, and I feel a little lost at sea. Part of me keeps saying “I thought you were supposed to be good at this,” while another part is insisting I was never good at it. NOT the positive NaNo start I was hoping for. Did I really call NaNoWriMo 2020 an oasis? Oof.
Favorite Character
Is it bad that I don’t have a favorite character yet? Truly, this is the major consequence of going in without a plan. I don’t have my feet under me, even if more words are hitting the page, and it’s difficult to say what I like and dislike so far when it’s all kind of an amorphous blob of word stew.
Good to see my metaphors are still carrying on, even when the rest of my writing feels flimsy as heck. 🙄
Goals for This Week
Hopefully, by next Tuesday night, I’ll have clocked 13,375 words, and a better sense of direction. I need to nail down character names, tone, settings, so much, and I deeply regret not investing more time in this prior to NaNo. This project is going to require SO MUCH revision by the time I reach the end of it, more than usual. I’m just hoping I don’t end up burned out.
As ever, if you want to stay in touch during NaNo, you can poke me over on Twitter (where I’m sort of scarce at the moment for mental health reasons), or on the NaNoWriMo official site! I’m usually down for word sprints, and love chatting about projects, whether it’s mine or yours. Let’s connect!