Tuesday, November 18, 2008

NANOWRIMO

OK. I have a secret. I am doing national novel writing month. Me and about 200,000 other people the world over. We have all pledged to write 50,000 words in one month--the month of November. The goal is quantity--not quality. You are urged to just write write write--you can revise and edit in December. For November you just crank out the copy. You can meet up with friends, or labor alone in obscurity, hiding your secret project from all you know. At the end of the month you paste your entire manuscript onto the site and they verify whether you reached the goal--and thus can be declared a "winner."
I didn't even dare to tell my husband for the first two weeks. I thought he would be angry at me taking on another project. But I am just waiting now. Waiting for an agent to respond--which means sudden flurries of activity, followed by tense periods of waiting.
I labored late at night or early in the morning, or while Benji napped, or lasagna was cooking. My perceptive, and perpetually snooping husband could feel something was up, but he didn't know what.
When I finally broke my silence at my birthday dinner, when the world was ending, the air smelled of smoke, and we were dining on Il Postinos and fresh burrata at Osteria Mozza, he said:
"Good think I am confident in our marriage. It is enough to drive a husband crazy to see his wife slamming the computer closed whenever he approaches, and spending more and more time alone."
One writer friend encouraged me to think of my novel as an affair. She said that can be very productive.
I am more than half way through. The story is incoherent and out of order. The writing rambly and often repetitive. And yet, by writing this way, amazing things do emerge. You realize which characters matter, and how certain events are linked in ways you never saw. Your subconscious DOES take over and show you incredible things about your life, your mind, the characters in your life, and how you have digested it all--consciously or unconsciously. I cannot reveal my plot here--or I would have to kill you. But trust me. It's good!

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