Along with thousands of other new and experienced writers across the globe,Teenreads and Kidsreads intern Brianna Robinson is participating in NaNoWriMo --- the month-long creative writing event where people must compose a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. Yup, you counted right --- that's 30 days, or, an average, 1,667 words a day.
In this new blog series, we'll check in with Brianna a few times throughout November to see her progress. Read the first part of her story, here, right before she starts Day 7,
I must be crazy.
I'm on a hurtling train heading toward Destination: Manuscript and I’m trying to get to 50,000 words in 30 days.
My problem? My inner critic makes it impossible for me to write a single word. I'm the slowest writer in the world.
My ideas get stopped up in a clogged drain, my fear and anxiety making it impossible for anything to flow.Alex Bracken explained my particular ailment accurately when she wrote of herself in her blog post “Perfect is the Enemy of Good,” "My writing perfectionism manifests in procrastination." I know I’m too critical; I know I hate everything I write.
And because of this, I never write a thing. I’m too afraid.
I wasn’t always like this. Not entirely. I once wrote 100,000 words of utter crap in a summer or two. I wrote every day and I didn't care what I wrote as long as I advanced the story and followed a VERY loose outline. This was a year after failing NaNoWriMo for the first time (mostly because my idea sucked and not because of the lack of motivation). I was determined to restart. That hurtling train was exactly what I needed. I needed to kick perfectionism and my inner critic in the butt.
So I started reading books like Twyla Tharp’s THE CREATIVE HABIT and PLOT AND STRUCTURE by James Scott Bell. I read the Publishing Crawl Blog religiously and looked up each one of my favorite writers and read their FAQs, where writing advice is usually featured. I even listened to some podcasts (I recommend Sarah Enni’s FIRST DRAFT Podcast because it’s pretty perfect.)
Most of this helped. But only in getting me motivated to start writing. However, I still had planning to do. I knew I wanted to revive the novel idea that I had abandoned a few summers ago. So I consulted the bevy of writing books I had collected (you don’t want to see my overdue library fines) and set about planning.
But I’m not a plotter. I’m more of a pantser. I write down the things that won’t leave me alone and take down major scenes that I know will take place, but I usually leave the rest up to inspiration. Ideas tend to spring from my head while listening to loud epic music scores or '90s rock (depends of my mood). But I tried --- even if my outline was more of a paragraph of things that should happen. And I didn’t let this, unlike my inner critic, deter me.
For the record, this was attempt number four at the STORY THAT MUST BE TOLD. The total word carnage is probably catastrophic and this time, I refuse to abandon any more. No word left behind and all that
So after my epic fail at planning, a few days later, at 5:00 PM on November 1st I wrote 2,000 words. And then I wrote another 2,000 on Day 2. And so on. I wrote 4,000 words on Day four. I was climbing the manuscript mountain, as Veronica Roth told me to in her epic and appropriate NaNo pep talk.
And as I write this, on Day 7, I have 12, 838 words. For those who are curious, I’m about 1000 words ahead, and I haven’t written today yet. But I will. And it will probably be awful. But at least I am getting it down. Right?
The point is, the doubt and fear will probably never go away. And that's okay. Hopefully, though, as I move onto the middle of my manuscript, I can push that to the side and just freaking write the thing. I've spent too long to not finish it. I've put it out in the universe. It DESERVES to be written. I'll tell myself whatever I need to. Because at the end of the day, I will write those 1,667 words. It’s the only thing I can do.
If you're in the same boat as me, Godspeed and Good luck. I'll see you at the other side.
Brianna is an intern at Kidseads.com and Teenreads.com.
