The Basement Office

I’ve got a slight case of the butterflies.

Tonight, we’ll take kiddo out in search of that sweet sweet Halloween swag (of which I will struggle not to partake, damn being diabetic).  There are only so many of these evenings left as she is growing so damn fast!

After that…National Novel Writing Month!

Are you starting at the midnight hour?  I’m going to try.  Tradition and all.

How are your preparations going?

After yesterday’s post, I feel a lot better about November.

Still, I took stock of how prepared I am going in.   In a nutshell, I’m nowhere near as prepared as I wanted to be 20 days ago according to that list.  I still feel good about it.   I think it’s worthwhile to take a look and check in, see what worked, what didn’t, what felt good but doesn’t now, what feels better.

Let’s go through it:

1 – Pause the fiction

Yeah, THAT did NOT happen.  Not even close.  I lasted a day.  I depend too much on my reading for maintaining my headspace, lowering my stress levels and having any hope of getting decent sleep.   It’s not that I can’t read non-fiction.  I do.   It’s that I can’t escape into non-fiction and I’ve come to realize that I NEED that escape.

This is nothing new.  I’m still very stressed in my current situation for many reasons that have nothing to do with writing (obviously it impacts it) and I simply did not consider how much reading helped keep that in check.

2 – Get an outline done

YES!  That was not only done, it was a good thing.   Getting a rough outline ready helped me see what didn’t work in my previous attempt and spawned a few new ideas that I can’t wait to try out.   Fundamentally, this Space Pirates is related to my first attempt but it’s become a different, better story than it ever was.

The outline is not anywhere near as detailed and fleshed out as I’d hoped it would be.   That’s ok.  It’s enough that I know where I’m going and where the story ends.  It has notes I need to hit and a few guideposts along the way.  It’s more than enough to get started tonight.

3 – Flesh out characters

I’ve pretty much failed in this one.  I have a small cast of characters that I know will need expansion as the story progresses.  None of them are fleshed out.

I’ll venture and say that it’s fine.   I’ll discover them as I go.  My main character feels good in my head and I do have SOME notes.  I’ll meet them along the way and hope they’ll play along.

*fingers crossed*

4 – Start writing

Haven’t done enough of that.   Beyond notes for November and these posts, I’ve done two writing prompts for maybe a thousand words total.

Not sure how I feel about that.  Is it bad?  Is it ok?   Jury’s still out in my head.

I still want to write.  That desire’s a good start.  I’ll take it.

5 – Eye on the prize.

I could definitely drop this point almost in it’s entirety.   Looking at it now, I was looking at the wrong thing.

Fuck it.

It’s not about the story.   The outline’s there, the story feels good…that’s enough.

It’s not about doing it right.  What’s right?

It’s not about the story.

Quote:  “It’s not about the 50K.  That’s the vehicle.”  BZZZZZZZT  WRONG!   So wrong!   It’s absolutely about that 50K.   It’s about putting words to page.   It’s about writing shit, allowing yourself to write shit in order to get that 50K OUT, only THEN can you worry about doing it “right”.   You can’t vomit perfection on a page.

Plus, I’m not writing right now.   THAT’S what it’s all about.

You can’t get to 50K without writing.   It’s about writing.

First write.   Get it right after.   Make it good later.

The only thing in that point that still makes sense to me is this one:

“It’s about finding ‘the zone’ again.”

That’s right in line with finding the fun.   Can’t find the fun if you get all anal about getting it perfect.   It’ll never be perfect.   Hell, anything NaNoWriMo will never come out “good enough”.

Good, perfect or readable…that comes later.

First write.