What a great start to this #WriteFriday: I was ridiculously behind on my NaNoWriMo blob (I’m not writing a novel, so I’ve been calling it a blob). Behind to the tune of being on Day 4 with only 1323 words. But as of midnight on Day 6 (so 11:59pm on Day 5), I had written 4,346 words, bringing my total up to 5669! I’m still behind a bit (on Day 6 the goal is to write 10,000 words), but at least I’m not nearly as far behind as I was.
So what have I written in my so-called writing blob? The first thing I wrote (which was on Day 3) was a random dream I’d had the night before. I don’t know what, if anything, I’ll do with it yet. But it was neat and I wanted to record it somewhere; the blob seemed as good a place as any to write it. Also on Day 3, I sat down and wrote a story for Apocalypse Madness (this was the story I mentioned on my ridiculously late October 30th #WriteFriday update). Day 4 saw me worldbuilding so I could fit Ayvlin into another world I’d already thought up (which I also mentioned on that last update). This ended up actually much easier than I originally thought it would be back in Grand Marais when I thought it up. The world actually does fit her and her story. It even fits the other characters that were with her in that roleplaying adventure. So I’ve mainly been working on that world, although I had a brief tangent into yet another world (I realized I have never written any of the ideas down for it and decided to remedy that immediately). I ended up working through a couple of things I’ve been struggling with on this world (“Do dragons belong here and what are they like?” being the main question I managed to finally answer). I also managed to tie in another world with this one. As I was worldbuilding, I started to realize that the second world, which I had long thought didn’t belong with this one, actually did fit quite nicely. So that was awesome! It’s looking like this world is going to be my most “stereotypical fantasy world,” even though it’s already got things going on to make it anything but stereotypical!
I did run into an unexpected problem though. Back in the summer of 2010 (which is just after I finished with the class I started this blog for, but way before I started using this blog for writing), I took a screenwriting course from Gotham Writers Workshop, during which I started writing a screenplay. The screenplay was a crazy science fiction adventure which I was having fun writing. Unfortunately after the class ended, life got in the way and I never did finish a first draft. But it had two science fiction races which I really, really liked the idea of. Hilariously, the faerie creatures that live on what I’m currently calling “Ayvlin’s World” have ended up an awful lot like one of the science fiction races. I’m currently not sure what, if anything, I need to do about that, because the similarities that they both have suit them both.
So after writing a bit more (about 600 words), I went to bed, thinking I’d have more time for writing today. But then I found myself at 11:39 having not written anything else for the NaNoWriMo blob all day (I had hoped to have another 4000 word marathon to get caught up with where I should be for word count). Between what I’d written earlier and those twenty minutes I managed to crank out a total of 1,380 words, bringing my total for the day up to 7049. I’m still about 3000 words behind where I should be (day 6 should put you at 10,000), but at least I’m not falling too far behind now.
For those twenty minutes (and about twenty minutes past midnight), I also did something extremely difficult: I started writing the Grief Project. For anyone who doesn’t remember, what I’ve been calling the Grief Project is the project I was going to write after Tink passed away last summer. But the grief was too raw and I wasn’t able to do it right away. So I put it aside, much longer than I had planned to. The grief is no longer so raw but it is still present; I’m not going to lie, I started crying a few times while writing it.
I don’t know what I’m going to do with the Grief Project (if anything). But it’s well past time I finally got to it. NaNoWriMo (and this NaNoWriMo in particular) is actually in some ways the perfect place to tackle it because I can let it be whatever it wants to be. Especially since it’s just part of my writing blob (which means I don’t even care if the Grief Project falls short of 50,000 words because it’ll just be part of the bunch of writings I’m doing this year).
Good luck to everyone else who is participating this year!
An Acquaintance with Letters 