n 1: the state of being without a flaw or defect [syn: flawlessness, ne plus ultra] [ant: imperfection] 2: an ideal instance; a perfect embodiment of a concept [syn: paragon, idol, beau ideal] 3: the act of making something perfect
WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University
I pulled out Chris Baty's book No Plot? No Problem
and read the chapter for Week One of NaNoWriMo.My favorite part?
…there's one thing I'll need to take from you.
I'll need to confiscate your Inner Editor.
That's right, the Inner Editor. The doubting, self-critical voice that we all inherited around puberty as an unfortunate door prize for surviving childhood. The Inner Editor is a busybody and perfectionist, happiest when it's tsk-tsking our shortcomings and weaving our past blunders into a rich tapestry of personal failure.
I surrendered mine with pleasure. And I wrote like crazy yesterday without a care in the world. A few times as I was writing I thought, "That will never make it through edits." But I didn't care… it's getting me from start to finish, it's helping me get to know the setting and the characters and -- more importantly -- the story.
A few days ago, Charity wrote about writing wasted scenes. I agreed with her that no scene is "wasted". Regardless of whether it eventually makes the cut, you've learned something: either about the story or characters or about the craft of writing. No writing is ever wasted.
And since each word is hard earned in NaNo, I'm taking every last one. I did, however, draw the line at having my characters NEVER use contractions when they spoke. The evil me figured it would add at least 1,000 words… but the good me realized I would have to change them when I edited, and I decided it was not worth it. Not to mention that it sounds really strange.
So that's it. Day One was a big success and Day Two has begun. I'll post total word counts periodically throughout the day. Also, the NaNo word count widget is to your right on the sidebar. It worked off and on yesterday -- I imagine that the NaNo site got hammered with users -- but it will also have my total word count.
Gotta fly!
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Though I am still (slowly) working, I thought I'd post today's words thus far:
For a grand total of:
6,078 / 50,000
Posts
4 comments:
Last year I was going to change my heroine's name so it was a double name (like Bobbie Sue kinda thing), but I thought that would be cheating.
You're off to a great start. I've only added about 300 more words this morning. Unfortunately I have to get the kids ready for school now.
toodles
xizxzx oh, absolutely no way. that's just sick.
I love the idea of writing like crazy, gathering words on the page to be sorted and arranged later; reality presents more of a challenge, though.
I had the same thought about contractions as you did. Same response, too.
Good luck today!
I wish somebody would take my Internal Editor away. I'm having a hard time getting her to Go Away.
chucking the inner editor sounds like a cool idea - and how clever are you, joining the NaNo and the NaBlo with the same posts....I guess if you're gonna write that many words, you might as well
good luck
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