Tomorrow is November…
and the day I will start NaNoWriMo! I wasn’t planning on doing it but then I’m watching as my writing goal dates are getting closer and I have no signs of any workable material and so… I will commit the next 30 days to writing 50,000 words… It will be a bit tricky because I do have quite a few trips coming up but as long as I spend the non-traveling time writing.. I should be okay.
I am also going to start with some sort of fresh idea and boycott my “Canadian girl moves to Indonesia to teach and live…” plot line that is just becoming some sort of self-reflective drivel.. So we’ll see what happens tomorrow morning…
I am excited to have an actual deadline to work towards and I love all of the message boards and things associated with this. It helps to know I’m not alone.
Good luck!! This is the first year I’ve even heard of NaNoWriMo but I seem to be hearing about it everywhere!
At the end of the day, the difference between the people who have books published and the people who don’t is that the former write books and the latter talk about writing books. It’s work.
Finish the first idea – maybe convert it to a short story, but use it to get your writing muscles exercised. If you have another idea while you’re writing (you very well might) then take some notes.
Abandoning ideas is a way of not writing – don’t let your mind trick you into not doing something because it’s not “good”. That just means your silly mind is bored of thinking about that book, not that the book isn’t good or a good idea.
To that end, also stop thinking about the book. Outline it, sit down and plug away at it, but don’t let yourself imagine about it when you’re not actually in front of your writing implement. DEFINITELY don’t let yourself imagine that it’s finished. No, no. Then you mind will really want to move on to the next idea! Finish it! Finish it!
I bet if you sat down on Friday and didn’t let yourself do anything else for a whole weekend, you could easily write a book. Don’t talk about it, DO IT. TALK is the mortal enemy of do. THINK is even worse.
Thanks DG.. I’ll stop talking about it and get to work. Also appreciate the advice with keeping the original idea going. Thanks!