Standing in my front driveway last night as I handed out candy to passing princesses, superheroes, and wild animals, I began discussing NaNoWriMo with a neighbor who teaches creative writing at a nearby university. I was genuinely shocked at how excited she was about the whole NaNoWriMo idea, and about my specific novel. She was immediately pushing things off into new directions, finding cultural parallels, and generally making me feel like: Hey, maybe this idea isn't so insane after all.
I floated on the helium of that conversation for the rest of the night — even when I had a panic attack in the dimly lit semi-solitude of my youngest child's room, as I rubbed her back and she fell asleep. While my hand felt the rise and fall of her back steady into its sleeping rhythm, I began obsessing over the (perhaps not-so-)little holes that plague my plot. Like, for instance: I know what my main character doesn't want to do with his life, but what is it that he strives to do in its place? Or is his whole reason for living simply to get away from the family business? There has to be more to it than that.
I looked for escape in the waning minutes leading up to the kickoff, but not even the guilty pleasure of a nip/tuck season premiere was able to keep me from watching the clock. I finished watching at 12:03 a.m. My muse had been freed! But wait — Laura woke up and wanted help sorting through the kid's Halloween loot. Writus interruptus.
Finally, the first sentence was pounded out at 12:43 a.m. By the time I was falling asleep, I had managed 615 words. Not a terrible start, and I knew I was going to have some "bonus time" the next afternoon. It felt a little weird to be writing in my bed, only because I had envisioned the start of this being in our living room, in the giant chair (or the "Thinking Chair," as my Blues Clues-drenched children like to call it), cozied up with a cup of coffee, some "borrowed" Halloween candy, and my newly licensed copy of Scrivener (Thanks, Mom!).
But the Thinking Chair was not where it all started. You see, the night before, I was prepared to go to bed at midnight and get a full six-and-a-half hours sleep — a good night for me! — when I suddenly realized as I brushed my teeth that I had yet to carve one pumpkin. My solemn duty as a father led me to realize that I could not face my girls in the morning without a jack-o-lantern. And so I went to work, and by 1:40 a.m., I was in bed, dozing off, with a large pumpkin carved with a pirate-skull design waiting for Piper and Zuzu's eyes when they sleepily trundled down the hall the next morning.
Perhaps it was an honorable move on my part, but that carving detour really took a lot out of me for the next night, leaving me to retreat to the easy-to-sleep bedroom locale, and probably keeping my word count down at the starting gun. NaNoWriMo guru Chris Baty recommends that you resist the call to sleep and power through until you have typed all you can type. But I decided to take those words to heart the next night.
And as I said, I got the opportunity to make up for some lost ground when I had to sub in for Piper's pickup from school and take her to an appointment. "Stuck" in a waiting area for 45 minutes or so, I was able to pound out 909 more words, putting me in excellent shape to hit Day 1's quota.
Which I did, easily, while settled into the official Thinking Chair. With the assistance of Earl Grey tea, various chocolate bite-sized treats, and the music of Floratone and Katahdin's Edge, I pushed through what feels to me a rather dull set-up to what I hope will be a pretty fascinating story. Or, perhaps I'll write the life out of it and the whole damn thing will be boring! I'm sure I'll worry about that much more in the coming days. Right now I'm happy to be off to such a snappy start.
No comments:
Post a Comment