A Quick Update

NaNoWriMo count: I wrote 31 pages (longhand) on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I would feel better about this if so much of it wasn't, um, how do you say? oh, yeah, crap. Yesterday, I read a book instead of writing on the plane home. Anyway, I have no idea how many words I have written, but I changed some crucial plot points and think I need to spend some quality time with my characters. I thought about getting friends of mine to improvise little chunks of action with me (i.e. I would give them their character breakdowns and we could see what might happen) but then I thought that was probably cheating and I wasn't sure if I wanted to give them any opportunities to offer artistic commentary at this early date.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I believe Baty recommends the idea of handing out character outlines to friends - if you want to, and having them come up with plot options. I don't think that's cheating at all - this is a REALLY HARD thing to do - a crazy goal - and anything that gets you there is good!

What you shouldn't do is go back over stuff you've written and start rewriting. The idea is to get the whole story down in one go - you don't have time to look back. That's what's so cool about it. You have to keep going.

It's like life. We don't get rewrites. Whatever mess we just made, our only choice is to march forward.

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