Well, the words are there — I’m a little ahead of “schedule” (having done slightly more than 1667 words a day), but the title of my journal entry today (I keep journals about my writing as I write in MacJournal) is “WTF is the plot of this book?” There’s a major coincidence in the setup of the book that I thought would resolve itself in some surprising and interesting way, but no resolution has showed itself — in fact, what the plot has done so far is tie me in knots and leave me nowhere to go. So I sat down to work a few things out before I continued to write, because apparently I’ve written enough today to be “ahead.”
Of course, if I redo the plot, theoretically I’d have to toss a bunch of pages. But this is Nanowrimo! And you don’t toss a word, you just put a note in saying, “Fix this in the future” and you keep on writing.
I know I said I would outline. I did. I’ve said it multiple times, I’ve discussed this with writing friends, I know that having worked out the plot ahead of time would free me up to just write. (I’m not one of these people who thinks outlining kills spontaneity and creativity. In fact, I think it frees you up to write as creatively as you want, because you know where to go and all you have to worry about is the actual writing.
Next time, I am totally outlining. I mean it.
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I just listened to WriMo Radio (the weekly podcast) and evidently Week Two is well-known as the location of “the wall,” so I’m hoping that that’s all this is. They also use the metaphor of “climbing the Himalayas and meeting the Yeti” which seems like an unnecessary, though hilarious, metaphor for the feeling.