11/3/08

NaNoWriMo Day 3

And I'm up to 7349 words! My goal is to write around 2500 words a day, so I feel I'm pretty much on track. Hoping to hit 10K tomorrow, but it may be tight given that I'm going to work the phones for the Obama campaign from 9-12 and then stand in line to vote for however long it takes. And I have to write before N gets home!

Today I didn't write till after class ended at 12:30. I told the whole class about Nanowrimo, and that they were to bug me if I didn't keep up. I am telling as many people as possible so there is no backing out of the project. I should try that with losing weight some time - IF the novel works out.

Nah, losing weight's already too damn embarrassing.

Anyway, I took my laptop with me to school and before class I read through the history papers I have on the NY school for the deaf and decided on some things I wanted to put in the next part of the book. Then after class I went straight over to the library's faculty IT center. No one was there for the first hour, so I wrote like a fiend. I stopped when I'd written 1000 words and went upstairs to stretch and to get some coffee (this book seems to require regular infusions of coffee, though I'm not drinking more than a couple of cups per session - that's still a lot more than I usually drink, and probably bad for me, but it is good for the writing!). When I came back down, there were two people in the IT center, one of whom is a buddy who proceeded to chat with me for 25 mins., even after I told him what I was doing.

So I don't think that will be a regular writing venue from now on.

Still, if you don't count the chat time, I managed to write at about 1000 words per hour, and got home about 3:20. This despite a few more people coming in and talking, sometimes to him & sometimes to me, and someone switching on the big tv. So I've learned that when I'm in the right frame of mind, having other things going on around me (including conversations in Panera) does not impede my writing. That's a big revelation - I always thought I needed peace and quiet in order to write. Turns out that Chris Baty is right when he says in his book that what is really important is a deadline!

[AND not being home. At least, not when there's an imminent election. The phone has been ringing steadily while I've been gone, according to the answering machine: 10 calls, all from people wanting me to vote for them, and has already rung twice in the 15 mins. since I got home! I guess I should go to Panera tomorrow to write. Once the election's over it should be safe to write at home, if no one else is here.]

~Cheers

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