On veering left and starting over

Here I am in my first NANOWRIMO with a good story premise and words coming along smoothly on day one. By day three with 3,000 words into my story I was running out of steam and finding that the premise I had wasn’t going anywhere. I just wasn’t grooving on the story.

So day four I switch to another story idea. I’d moved from a paranormal fiction piece heavy on character development to a humor one full of zany characters and my own quirky observations.

Having written a humor blog for over 3 years, I was very comfortable with the style of writing I’d need to do but concerned if I could push the story out to hit the novel size 50K. Humor tends to be short and I was used to writing short pieces.

By the end of day four I’d clawed my way back up to 2800 words and then days five and six I was so flowing with words I hit 20K. That’s the most writing I’ve ever done and it felt both epic and exhilarating to accomplish. I did have a rough outline of ideas to use. That was the first time I’d used an outline before and it helped push the word count quickly. I remember my first novel this summer I’d been inspired and put in a couple of 7K days but never this much writing. I don’t think I could have done it without the outline.

The event has inspired to keep me writing. I don’t really get writers block or much distraction per say but that was the first time I’d left a story from lack of inspiration to make it happen. While I’m still worried if I can stretch a humor story out to the 50K mark and in time (I’ve got a week over Thanksgiving I’ll be hiking in the desert and unable to write so I’m going to have to stay ahead), I’m going to give it my all and enjoy the event as much as I can.

As an at-home writer just learning the craft and process I appreciate being in the company of other writers when I’m at the write-ins. It’s a great month long event.

Ed Welter