State of the WriMo

Posted by Mo on 1 Dec 2009 in Chatter |

wrimo Yesterday marked the end of NaNoWriMo and – genius me – I didn’t get around to my word validator until too late. So, I have no official word count, only what my little MS Word spits out. I’m going with that…

Coming in at 47,225 words is UNTITLED!!!!! I fell short, but I’m counting this as a personal win because I wrote a hell of a lot of words in just 30 days. Less than I imagined, but more than I hoped (if that makes any sense).

I have a long way to go before this is a complete work. For starters, most of those words are notes, character sheets, a synopsis and chapter outlines. It’s a monumental project with lots of nuances that is requiring me to be much more organized with my pre-writing than I normally am. The few times I tried to delve into actually writing the prologue or chapters, I found myself getting painted into a corner because of a plot element that I hadn’t thought through yet.

Add to that the fact that I’m doing three things with this project that I’ve never really done before. First, I’m writing a genre piece – sort of sci-fi/fantasy and metaphysical all rolled into one. Second, I’m writing in the 3rd person, which is something I’ve never really been comfortable with. I am very self-conscious about the fact that my writing is not the strongest it’s ever been and I’m constantly reminding myself that I can fix it in revision. Finally, I’m doing a TON of historical research because, while this is NOT a historical fiction piece, I want to add at least a slight air of realism to a few of my characters (both main and supporting) to make the more unbelievable elements of the story seem at least plausible. If you’re anything like me, you understand me when I say that it’s VERY easy to get sidetracked while researching because of some random info-tidbit that grabs your attention and causes (yet more) google searches.

At any rate, I’m continuing on with this project. It’s nice and juicy and I will hopefully be done with the first part of my (so far) three part series by this time next year. Of course, that’s just conjecture – I’m notorious for snubbing my nose at deadlines (including those that are self-imposed).