Fast Fiction

It seems that many, many people are taking NaNoWriMo very seriously. Perhaps it is the fact that I know I can do it that I’m feeling a little cocky. I do have hindsight. But I also have this terrible problem of wearing these vision correcting rose colored glasses ... I forget that I must have struggled to finish. I look over some of my postings in my log and realize that I must have had trouble. I was 13,000 words behind on November 15th.

But I can’t imagine being “prepared.” Perhaps it’s the fact that I write from my brain and not from my notes, but I can’t have chapters and outlines. Maybe I could, but somehow I think that’d take all the fun out of it. What if I knew what was going to happen, I mean, really happen in my novel? What’d be the point. I like writing to find out.

I’ve got an idea, I’ve got questions and the only way to answer them is to start writing and let that figure them out for me. I think writing is really a computer. I input ideas and the act of writing solves them for me.

But again, maybe I’m not doing this the proper way. I’m amazed to see that people have so much done already. How can you name a chapter already? How do you know that you have 14 chapters in the first place?

Well, I’m not even going to think about it this weekend. I’m off on a trip up the coast and I’m going to shut off my writing brain and turn on my paddling and hiking brain.