Today’s word count: 1449 words
The writing session went much better today. I think it was because I wasn’t nearly as tired as I had been yesterday. Earlier today, I had also worked out a bit of a snag that had come up in terms of one of my main characters, and so it felt like I had more of a direction, which made things a lot easier.
I will definitely have to do some rewriting; not yet, because I want to get this scene I’m working on completed first. But one of my main characters has changed a lot since I first conceived of the novel back in the fall, so all the scenes in which she appears will have to be revised. The change feels right to me, though. This character provides the paranormal element in the story, and when I wrote the bulk of the pages that I have right now back in November, she was the one who gave me the most problems. I glided through the police procedural part of the story easily in comparison.
Character Profiles
Recently, after having reread the pages I’d written for NaNoWriMo, I sat down and wrote out detailed profiles of each of my main characters. I got the idea to do this from Elizabeth George’s Write Away; she recommends that you sit and write about each of your characters, stream of conscious style, so that you can capture things about your character that you might never have known. (If you’re a fan of George’s Thomas Lynley mysteries, Write Away gives a very detailed account of how she writes her novels.)
The character profile for this particular character was the one that gave me the most trouble. Even after writing out three full pages, I didn’t really feel like I knew her much at all. But now I think I have a much clearer idea of who she is now, what she does, and how she does what she does. And having that clarity seems to make a big difference in terms of how well I feel the writing has gone.
Consistency in the Writing
Although, as I’ve mentioned, how I feel about the writing doesn’t seem to mean anything when it comes to the actual words themselves. I find that consistency in flow when reading the words on the page to be very heartening. It means I can have a bad day, but the words won’t reflect that.
To those of you also working on writing goals, how has it been going? If you’ve blogged about it, please leave a link in the comments, as I’d love to visit and cheer you on the way you’ve all been cheering me on. Or if you don’t intend to blog about it, feel free to write about your writing in the comments instead!
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve followed your writing posts with great interest. I tried NANOWRIMO in 2008 & didn’t get very far because I had a hard time ignoring my ‘regular life’ enough to write as much as I needed to. Maybe I’ll try your idea instead. It seems less intimidating.
Any advice?
~Amanda
Bookwormom’s last blog post..Four in Hand; Stephanie Laurens
Amanda, definitely go for the half hour as a goal. I was thinking against last night how much easier it is when I think, “it’s just a half an hour” compared to “now I’ve got to sit down to write for at least an hour”. I type fairly fast, and when I get into it, it’s fairly easy to get at least a 1000 words in half an hour. I know much of it will be cut and revised, but at least I’m getting it down!