I’m Thankful for Catch up Week

For no reason at all, a picture of Toni Morrison.

12,254 words. My pitiful word count is taunting me. All around the web people are boasting about making it past 50,000. I salute them and try not to compare myself. I just have to focus on what’s going on in my novel. If victory is going to be reached, it’s in the empty spaces of this holiday week so I’m thankful of the time to myself to think through the difficult spaces of the world I’m creating.

My novel, The Ants, concerns itself with a man who leaves the relative stability of his family life to find adventure in a revolution on a Caribbean island. The early part, the narrator’s thoughts as he thinks through and begins his run, was deceptive as it started out with a relatively easy flow.

My first person narrator was very generous and eager to share his thoughts. Then he met some people and his flow and the action slowed as it came from my fingertps, but it still came relatively easy. Now the motion of the book has moved away from him somewhat and I’m finding the voice of a new section.

Earlier I could see everything I wanted to write, it was just a matter of sitting down to shoot it out. Now everything is dimmer. Feels less like the book is writing itself and more like work. Wonderful work, however. I am concerned at the loss of time for quiet contemplation, I thought I’d find that contemplation in novel-writing was overrated in the initial drafting stage as I’d do much of that in revisions. I’m pretty much convinced that it is necessary at all parts. I hear once you get to around 30,000 words everything falls into place and the novel magically ends itself. I’m looking forward to that.

Oh well, 10 days to go and, according to the word count feature on the NaNoWriMo website, 3,432 words a day to finish on time. Let’s go.

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Bowie State’s NaNoWriMo write-ins take place every Thursday (with the exception of Thanksgiving) on Bowie State University’s campus (14000 Jericho Park Road, Bowie, MD 20715-9465) in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Building from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. All are welcome.