Sunday, November 05, 2006

Chill Mag article and Nanowrimo update

Due to the intensity of NaNoWriMo, the blogging hasn't been as frequent. So far, it has been a very interesting experience. Although it makes total sense, I was amazed at how easy it is to write 3,000 words a day if you just say, "I'm not leaving this chair until I make my word count!" You want to go to the bathroom. You want another cup of coffee. You want to watch bad day-time television. You will write those 3,000 words! Yes, chores are being ignored, laundry and dishes are piling up, I haven't seen much of my friends, and I'm becoming slightly sleep deprived...But it'll be worth it in the end (and if anyone wants to volunteer to clean my house, that would be great. Just think of it as a donation to the arts). As of right now, I'm at 14,500, almost right on schedule. But hopefully, I'll crank out another thousand by the end of the day.

The other aspect that has been amazing to me is how much your own writing can surprise you. When your streamlining the story, the thoughts coming faster than your fingers can type, it seems that the characters take on a life of their own. I heavily outlined the major plot points, but let the connecting scenes write themselves, and I found myself saying, "Shit, I didn't know that was going to happen." I think this is the good part of the writing, when your own story can surprise you, when, just like the reader, you're unsure of what could happen next. Whether or not I'll end up writing myself into a hole, it's too soon to tell. Right now I'm enjoying the experience, especially when I run into other sleep deprived writers at some cafe and I ask, "NaNoWriMo?" and they just give a zombie like nod and reply, "NaNoWriMo."

On another interesting note, I was featured in an article for Chill magazine, written by the very talented Alicia Eler. After years of writing about other people, it was a cool experience to be on the other side of the interview. Check it out, e-mail it to your friends, get this girl a little press to feed her ever growing ego!

1 comment:

Alicia said...

yay! thanks for referencing me here. i think the article looks great --