I’m a little behind on my word count due to a two-day trip to Niagara Falls with my Swedish relatives. I think I was probably nuts to choose July as the best time to take on the write-a-novel-in-a-month challenge. Lots of people do reading challenges. Many of my favorite bloggers, for example, have multiple reading challenges happening at the same time. I applaud them but I find, even with my new (used) laptop, writing just isn’t as portable as reading.
If I write longhand, the way I started this challenge, it’s difficult to estimate the word count and I still end up retyping everything later. Worse still, retyping naturally activates my Inner Editor who wants to correct grammar and look for just the right metaphor. Writing at top speed is draining enough without my Inner Critic saying: “Go back and fix it.” If I’m not going to quit, I have to press on and worry only about word count and plot. Now there’s a snarl worthy of the Gordian Knot treatment.
There are so many questions and difficulties in combining the many themes and strands. Should the runaway Dad in my story leave the Greek Islands for Niagara Falls just so I can use the local colour I picked up there? What happened to the environmental obsessions that were driving my protagonist crazy in the first quarter of the book? Will she ever make it to the wildest ongoing party this neighborhood, or perhaps even Toronto, has ever seen, or will she pretend to be sick again? Will her creepy landlord finally put her things out in the rain? Will the lobster problem be solved? Will her mother’s new operation be shut down by the police? Questions, questions, questions…
The answers are flying out of my fingertips as fast as I can make them up. I am currently at 37 782 words but to get back to schedule, I am supposed to make it to 40 000 words by the end of the day.
Wish me good luck and happy reading.