After spending the first almost two days of National Novel Writing Month doing pretty much nothing, I sat down at about 9 at night on the second day and wrote almost 2,000 words until about 2 in the morning. Then I got up the next (later) morning and wrote for a long time more until I hit just a little over 9,000.
Hey, whatever works, right? Yesterday I got my total to over 12,000, and today I’m moseying along so far. But I figured that I would say hi to the blog-o-sphere since I haven’t yet, and I’m doing good on my word counts.
There’s a big discussion, as all of you know, about the difference between a “pantser” (writing by the seat of your pants) or a “plotter” (meticulously plotting out everything and then going for it). Also, there’s the writer who writes the book religiously from beginning to end (linear writer) vs. someone who jumps around in time depending on whatever strikes their fancy (time jumper). I’m a little of both. I tend to be a pantser more than a plotter, but I’ve recently been doing a lot more plotting. And my first book series I worked on I DID NOT SKIP SECTIONS. I wrote out everything very carefully in order. But the second series (the first of which is the one that’s almost done), I jumped around a lot and then filled in sections. I still jump around, to scenes later in the series, to write them out and then fill out here and there. It’s like a bizarre, digital patchwork quilt that I haven’t really quite made fit yet and keep throwing out bits here and there.
Anyway, the point of this is, for NaNoWriMo, I’ve been been doing a little of all of it. I’ve pushed myself to return to my linear roots a bit because I feel that sometimes I get lazy with time jumping. And I will admit I’m doing a lot of pantsing, which is hard not to do when deciding to do NaNoWriMo at the last minute. But the plot has been evolving, as it does, and I’ve been working on filling out stuff in the future and having an aim and direction to follow. I have my plotting developing as my story develops. Ha!
Otherwise, writing from a male perspective is different and fun. Not sure I’ve got it down, but I’m enjoying the challenge – while also trying not to subscribe to too many gender stereotypes.
