go team go
Wed 2014-11-05 23:19:15 (in context)
- 51,730 words (if poetry, lines) long
Every day, every work day, presents another face-off between the warring factions of Stuff To Do and Not Enough Time. Yesterday, the latter won, and it was a depressing wipe-out. Today, a decisive victory went to the former. Which is to say: Today I got to prove to myself that, yes, all the different things I have to do can coexist in a single day.
Well, that may be a little optimistic. To be precise: home improvement projects (paint-stripping and sanding closet doors--we're down to the sanding now, folks) coexisted with a well-rounded writing day (morning pages, freewriting, fictionette prep, novel work, Examiner blogging, this-here blogging). And on a Wednesday, too, which is when I record an hour-long reading of employment ads for the Audio Information Network of Colorado. Also there was a not insignificant period of time spent on Puzzle Pirates, mostly during the AINC reading and the paint-stripping.
Notably, my day did not include roller derby practice, and I bowed out of my usual Wednesday night trivia outing. The only "out" I went was to the craft store to reward myself for getting the doors from the paint-stripping stage to the sanding stage. (Aida cloth and DMC embroidery floss. I'm going to finally cross-stitch that "Hurricane Chart, Cajun Style.") Well, and to the restaurant next door for chicken korma and an hour's writing. So. Many things can coexist in a single day, but not, alas, everything. I suppose that's why we gave ourselves seven different days in a week.
About that novel work: I have decided, between yesterday's "we'll see" and today, that I'm constitutionally unable to just sit back and not participate in NaNoWriMo. I don't think I could look myself in the mirror on December 1 if I didn't give November by best novel-writing shot. Besides, I started off this year with the idea that every work day should include some short fiction and some novel work. I might as well try to get back to that.
However, I'm still at a total of zero words. My editor brain knows I'm trying to write a second draft of Iron Wheels rather than a first draft of something new. It won't let me just start typing away. It's got a point; I don't want to repeat the aimless, unstructured journey of the 2013 draft. Since I couldn't bring myself to just blart out rough draft, I instead blarted out thoughts on characters and plot. I especially had some thoughts about Katie's dad and his school board politics, and how these sort of disappeared from the 2013 draft. I'd like to give Mr. Greenbriar a significant role in this draft, maybe bring him face to face with the Faerie Queen and have them argue over who gets Katie. (Spoiler: It's Katie who gets Katie. That's what "growing up" means.)
Maybe tomorrow I'll manage to lay down some "real" words... depending, of course, on which team wins the battle over Thursday. I suspect it's going to be a very close contest.