NaNoWriMo: Day One
*gasp gasp* ugh I made it *struggle gasp*
Day one is done, and I'm already tired. I forgot how much work it is to write 1,700 words every day. I had an idea, and what I thought was a pretty good one at that, but still, 1,700 words is about 3 pages, and it's been quite a while since I wrote anything particularly original. I do a lot of academic writing, and that's all based on my data and other people's data, so I guess I'd forgotten what it's like trying to pull the thread of an idea from my head. That didn't make any sense. I'd forgotten what it was like to have a completely original idea of my own, and then write that idea and try to develop it at the same time.
In the past year or so, since I did NaNoWriMo last, I've mostly been editing. My first project, "Thicker than Water," ended up being about 168,000 words. Turns out, that's not a great length for a young adult book, unless you're J. K. Rowling. I recently managed to cut it down to 135,000 or so, and that's still on the long side. Editing is a horrible horrible thing. It feels so futile, like I spent all this time selecting the perfect words to tell my story, and now I'm deleting them, sending them into an electronic nothingness. Backspace and you no longer exist. However, as time went on and I went through my fourth round of revision, it became easier to cut whole sentences and whole chapters. It was good to spend some time on other projects, giving me the chance to distance myself a bit from the project and remove some of that emotional attachment to the words I'd written. Coming back to it was like "bam, slash, you're gone!"
Wow that got really dark.
Well, I suppose it's fitting that it turned into such a dark thing to say, because the intro to "Tangle" isn't exactly picnics and roses. My main character, Eva, is just arriving back from her mission to destroy the Banzais, a radical group of gardeners (more or less) growing plants other than kudzu in a greenhouse. See, growing plants beside kudzu is illegal (thanks, lobbying) since kudzu is now the only plant stock remaining. It's illegal to save seeds, but some people did anyway and now there are these little pockets of resistance. Anyway, the thing is that Eva can't remember the last two months of her life, from while she was at the Banzais' greenhouse. She thinks she headed out to join them just earlier that day, and now an entire two months are gone from her memory. I know, it's trope-y to have "the girl who can't remember," but sometimes you just have to work with what your brain gives you.
I'm really hoping this month goes well. "Tangle" isn't as dear to my heart as "Thicker than Water" and its sequels are, but I really think I could write it in a month. Sometimes it feels like writing has that sort of S-shaped curve you see in metabolism reactions sometimes, where it's hard at the beginning and easy in the middle and hard again at the end. Maybe I'm thinking of a bell curve. Either way, I think getting started (and keeping going) are going to be the hardest things here at the beginning. Hopefully, in a couple months, I'll be well into the editing process. *Now with thicker skin and less attachment!*
And now, a brief excerpt from today's writing.
Chapter One
Day one is done, and I'm already tired. I forgot how much work it is to write 1,700 words every day. I had an idea, and what I thought was a pretty good one at that, but still, 1,700 words is about 3 pages, and it's been quite a while since I wrote anything particularly original. I do a lot of academic writing, and that's all based on my data and other people's data, so I guess I'd forgotten what it's like trying to pull the thread of an idea from my head. That didn't make any sense. I'd forgotten what it was like to have a completely original idea of my own, and then write that idea and try to develop it at the same time.
In the past year or so, since I did NaNoWriMo last, I've mostly been editing. My first project, "Thicker than Water," ended up being about 168,000 words. Turns out, that's not a great length for a young adult book, unless you're J. K. Rowling. I recently managed to cut it down to 135,000 or so, and that's still on the long side. Editing is a horrible horrible thing. It feels so futile, like I spent all this time selecting the perfect words to tell my story, and now I'm deleting them, sending them into an electronic nothingness. Backspace and you no longer exist. However, as time went on and I went through my fourth round of revision, it became easier to cut whole sentences and whole chapters. It was good to spend some time on other projects, giving me the chance to distance myself a bit from the project and remove some of that emotional attachment to the words I'd written. Coming back to it was like "bam, slash, you're gone!"
Wow that got really dark.
Well, I suppose it's fitting that it turned into such a dark thing to say, because the intro to "Tangle" isn't exactly picnics and roses. My main character, Eva, is just arriving back from her mission to destroy the Banzais, a radical group of gardeners (more or less) growing plants other than kudzu in a greenhouse. See, growing plants beside kudzu is illegal (thanks, lobbying) since kudzu is now the only plant stock remaining. It's illegal to save seeds, but some people did anyway and now there are these little pockets of resistance. Anyway, the thing is that Eva can't remember the last two months of her life, from while she was at the Banzais' greenhouse. She thinks she headed out to join them just earlier that day, and now an entire two months are gone from her memory. I know, it's trope-y to have "the girl who can't remember," but sometimes you just have to work with what your brain gives you.
I'm really hoping this month goes well. "Tangle" isn't as dear to my heart as "Thicker than Water" and its sequels are, but I really think I could write it in a month. Sometimes it feels like writing has that sort of S-shaped curve you see in metabolism reactions sometimes, where it's hard at the beginning and easy in the middle and hard again at the end. Maybe I'm thinking of a bell curve. Either way, I think getting started (and keeping going) are going to be the hardest things here at the beginning. Hopefully, in a couple months, I'll be well into the editing process. *Now with thicker skin and less attachment!*
And now, a brief excerpt from today's writing.
Chapter One
The first thing I hear are the sirens.
Sirens. Sirens mean ambulance,
fire truck, police. Bad things have
happened – bad things have happened to someone.
My brain stumbles from one thought to another as the wail rises and
falls.
The second thing is the voices.
Words like “stabilize” and “blood sugar” and “pulse” scatter in the air,
like something out of one of those hospital dramas I’ve seen on TV. The sound of clattering metal joins the
voices, adding to the low din that can’t be covered up by the siren. Can
someone turn that down?
A sudden wave of nausea rushes through me and I double up, coughing. Something tugs at my arm and the voices rise
in volume, hands touching me here and there and everywhere. Insistent beeping joins the fray as I hear
the crinkle of a bag being held up to my mouth.
I crack my eyes open and cough up a small amount of nasty-tasting liquid
that hangs in a phlegmy string from my lips.
Someone tells me it’s okay, I’m going to be all right, to just relax and
stay calm.
The world swerves to the right and my head spins. I try to lay down gently but instead fall
back, darkness closing in on the edges of my vision.
A voice orders me to stay awake and someone shakes my body gently. I try to fight through the haze, but I can
feel myself fading in and out. Another
crinkle and a rip of a wrapper, a
sharp pain in my arm, and my vision slowly clears. The ceiling comes into focus, then the rest
of the room. No, wait – the ambulance. That explains the siren. Paramedics sit on either side of me, their
hands busy. Then –
I glance down at myself. At my
body on the gurney. Out the windows, at
the streetlights flashing by, the signs indicating that we’re pulling into the hospital. Just this morning I was arriving in the kudzu
wastes. How can I be back already?
What happened between this morning and tonight?
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