Tonight marks the close of the 7th day of NaNoWriMo 2011.

When I first started making posts about it back in . . . probably August? Maybe even July? . . . I had come to the decision that I did not want yet another incomplete novel sitting on my hard drive, especially with four current ones in development. It just seemed silly. Irresponsible. Overwhelming. And probably a few other choice adjectives as well.

So I decided to do a collection of 26 short stories. I’ll spare you from me repeating the idea again. The idea was that they were supposed to be short stories. You know, 2000 to 2500 words on average. I’d do one per day, maybe not even in order, and at the end I’d have around 52,000 words. Ample to win NaNoWriMo and it would give me 26 new short stories to play with.

“A Is for Anchor” currently sits at 10,574 words, and it’s not even close to done.
“B Is for Bard” currently has 7,547 words, and is also not complete. I know where I’m going with it, at least.
“C Is for Clowns (that Creep Through Your Yard)” is at 5,700 words even, and is complete.

“D Is for Dragon” boasts 6,369 words, complete.
“E Is for Egg” weighs in at 4,975 words, complete.
“F Is for Fang (that Gets Sunk in Your Leg)” halted at 6,731 and is not complete.¹

“G Is for Gravesite” came in at just 2,204 words, complete.

At least one of the stories came in around 2000 words.

This puts me at 44,717 words in just 7 days. If I keep writing at the same rate I’ve been writing so far this month, I will surpass the monthly goal of 50,000 words tomorrow at some point.

To say that this is unexpected would be tantamount to calling the Pacific Ocean “a bit damp.” I had no idea I could write this much in just 7 days. Hell, I had no idea I could write > 7,000 words in one day (a personal best).

In just one week of NaNoWriMo, here is what I have learned:

• At no point in my life can I ever again utter the phrase, “I just can’t find the time to write.” That, to put it bluntly, is bullshit. I’m working the same job for the same amount of hours this week as I was two weeks ago. I still have the same social obligations. I haven’t missed anything important that I normally do. The difference is that I didn’t find time to write; I made time to write. I get up a couple of hours early in the morning and I write. Instead of futzing around on Facebook, Twitter, LiveJournal, YouTube, Google+, and GoodReads during my “free time,” I write. During lunch when I would normally read a book after finishing my meal, I write. When I come home from work, instead of relaxing with a DVD or reading or listening to podcasts, I write. Do you see a pattern? I certainly do. The thing that is important to me—writing—is what I’m spending time on. Anything less important goes bye-bye. I reiterate that during this week, I did not miss one single social event. I attended both writers group meetings, went to a party, socialized with my housemate, socialized with people at work, spent time with my cats, listened to some podcasts (but only in the car or while working when I cannot otherwise write), kept up in a limited way on Facebook… I intend to attend three writers group meetings this week as well as working an extra hour at work for monthly maintenance on some servers I’m responsible for. But right under all of that on my priorities is writing.
• Never again will I be able to utter the phrase “I just don’t have any ideas.” That is also bullshit. The trick isn’t having ideas, it’s turning them off. The truth is, I get ideas for stories all the time. Usually I dismiss them because they aren’t something I want to write right now or don’t go with anything I’m working on. Sometimes I write them down for ‘later,’ but we all know ‘later’ is never coming. Well, I needed 26 fresh ideas for NaNoWriMo and with the exception of a few tough letters of the alphabet, the problem hasn’t been finding an idea, it’s been finding a good one among all the crappy ones. For ‘S’ as an example, I had to sift through Sulfur, Saturn, Sinister, Silo, Silver, Sylph, Sand, Scraps, Solid…for each word that occurred to me, the tiny sliver of an idea would come with it. Was Silver a story about werewolves? Did Solid involve an alien able to exist in any state of matter? Did Silo have to do with an abandoned missile silo in a post-apocalyptic world? Maybe. Some of the others were probably just as good. But when Skullcosm finally came to me, I knew that was my S-word. And even inside that world, the story itself could take any of a number of shapes, one of which I’ll pick. Perhaps at the moment of coming up with a character name on the morning of the 19th. So, yeah. I have ideas. I just discard most of them. This week has taught me that some of those stories should probably get written sooner and not later, and certainly not never.

I also know that I cannot sustain 6000+ words per day. It is too wrist-intensive for one thing, but it also promotes quantity over quality, which is just fine and dandy for NaNoWriMo; not at any other time, however. Sure, there’s something to be said for getting a story down that’s way too long and then whittling away all the parts that aren’t the story I want to tell and leaving the only the bits that are behind. And that will most certainly be done with each of these when November is in the rearview and Christmas is hurtling ever closer.

December is always about the loss of momentum for me. NaNoWriMo is over! Whew! Time to parTAAAAAY! And by ‘parTAAAAAY’ I mean goof off. But I am going to try to make an effort to at least keep the momentum going.

Sometime in December, I’ll be recording myself reading one of my stories for a podcast. I haven’t decided which one, yet, but I’m heavily leaning on “D Is for Dragon” or “G Is for Gravesite” right now. It’s a pretty low-key podcast called The Quillian Chronicles, and is produced by members of my Second Life writers group as a way to foster participation by producing our stories in audio format for free distribution to the listening public.

Have I mentioned that I loathe the sound of my recorded voice? <sigh>

  by  hans s 

I’ve found it difficult to write, lately. I don’t know exactly why, except that maybe I have too many projects in progress at once. See if you agree.

I have a novel-in-progress that was my 2008 NaNoWriMo novel. It’s a high fantasy with lots of magic, five main characters, a quest, really evil bad guys, prophecy…and had been knocking around inside my skull for more than two decades when I finally decided it was time to do something about it. I wrote about 1/4 of what I envision taking place in the novel, and was still at 51,115 words. Now it’s hanging out there, mocking me, waiting for editing. It’s called The Third Prophesy.

And I have a novel-in-progress that is an urban fantasy similar to Jim Butcher‘s The Dresden Files books. So similar, in fact, that I worry that someone may think I stole the idea, but honestly, I started writing it before I’d read any of his books. It’s about some GBI agents that belong to a paranormal investigation group within the bureau and a tough-as-nails Atlanta PD detective who work to solve a string of bizarre murders in Atlanta. Committed with magic, of course. I’m about 38,000 words into this one, and have kind of reached a snag because I need to add a new character, but he needs to have been there since Chapter 2, and I’m in Chapter 9. Whoops. It’s called Perdition’s Flames.

And I have a novel-in-progress that is the second in the series I mention above. I did this one for NaNoWriMo 2009, because I had a fantastic idea and had to write it down. So I’m 53,122 words into that one, and am almost done. I’ll have to go back, of course, and flesh it out a bit. In this one, the investigators from the first book solve another, even weirder string of murders committed using magic. This one is called Death Scene.

And if that weren’t bad enough, I have ideas for the next two books in that series, but nothing concrete enough to start writing. Just a bunch of hand-written ideas in a notebook I keep with me constantly. One of them is tentatively called Lethal Allure, but I think that will change.

Let’s see, what else?

Ah, yes. I have three novelette- or novella-length stories on back burners, waiting for inspiration. Two are finished, and I’ve workshopped both of them…but my critiquers found them…lacking. The third is in a limbo state of being half written and half in my head. All three are hard science fiction.

I’m working on a hard science fiction story set on Mars. I’m revising an urban fantasy/dark fiction short story involving a vampire.

All in all, I think I have twelve short stories in various stages of completion. They range from pure horror to high fantasy, dark fiction, humorous sci-fi, urban fantasy, and a couple that don’t really fit any conventional genre. And they range in length from a 1200-word snippet to something along the lines of 7500 words.

And yet I can’t write. I sit down and the words…just don’t come. I can write this stuff all day, of course. :)

I think I need a kick in the pants. Maybe literal, but I’m hoping for figurative. :)