Acquired from the internet hive mind
NaNo – Well, This Isn’t Going As Planned
So much for my science fiction thriller I planned in my head all of October and attacked the first day of National Novel Writing Month. The second day I did the “Butt In Chair – Hands on Keyboard” … and I got a blog posting. In fact I got several blog postings. Sunset and sunrise saw me return for the BIC-HOK, and, well, I have a blog for today.
If this keeps up, my blog for 2017 may get completed before the end of the month and 2018 could have a great jump start.
Novel, not so much.
It breaks the rules, and I hate breaking rules. NaNoWritMo is about writing Novels – fictional pieces, long-form. Most of my blogs, and that is what my brain is providing right now, are neither.
On the other hand after nearly two years of brain-to-keyboard disconnect, I am happy with ANY production. I just would have been happier to have salable production.
The plus side is I will have the basics for the Writing Exercise non-fiction book I have been thinking about.
Writing is a weird thing. The biggest discipline is “Butt in Chair – Hands on Keyboard”. Forcing your mind to stop thinking about writing and actually doing writing requires will-power; depending on the day and how long the habit has been in place, a great deal of will-power. After directing the will-power to the initial task of BIC-HOK, discipline in directing your mind in specific writing tasks can be lacking.
Sometimes it makes magic. Rarely does it meet deadlines.
Melissa Gilbert-McArthur wrote a Magical Words on the combination of BIC and deadlines, and it can be found here: http://www.magicalwords.net/melissa-gilbert/friday-fundamentals-deadlines/. Power to her for having the will power to pull off both at once.
Me, I am going to take the writing bug and get a little more blogging done.
WRITING EXERCISE: Butt-in-chair. Sit in your writer seat for half an hour today and write something. Do it again tomorrow. Do it five days in a row. Half an hour in your writer seat. No internet, no facebook, no twitter. If you live with someone, hand them your phone and walk to your seat and start. BIC-HOK and write. There you go -the first five days of the twenty-one days to create a new habit. The rest is up to you.