Day Three

We are three days into this year's NaNoWriMo.  Yay!

For those of you who do not know, it is where you agree to write a novel in a month.  There's a website to sign up to, and you record your daily wordcount here to see if you are on track.  The target is set at 50,000 words for the whole month, which works out at 1,667 words a day, I believe.  It isn't actually hard to write that number of words a day; it's having them make any sense which is more of an issue.

So far, I am on track with the word count.

Here's the thing, though - some people plan their plots out, or have notes on characters and so forth.  I just had a line float into my head partway through day one and then went from there.  It is how I did it last year, but that didn't really turn into a proper novel.

People have different ways of planning.  I spend lesson upon lesson teaching different methods to kids, and encouraging them to plan, because it really does help.  No, it isn't marked.  No, that doesn't mean it's a waste of time.  Would I have spent all of this lesson time on it if it had no point?  Have you not heard me say we have a whole course to get through and we need to keep on track?

I may just record my answers to these questions, keep them on my laptop or iPod, and press play when the next class starts asking.  I could also do a playlist for 'Why do we have to read Shakespeare', 'But this isn't History class' and 'No-one else has asked me to have a pen today.  Why do we have to do writing?', amongst others.

Despite my insistence on the importance of planning, I do not, myself, plan.  At least, not in the sense that I know what I am going to write about before I start.  With an essay, yes.  To an extent.  The same goes for anything else with a specific brief.  I will plan enough to generate ideas and get me started, I will have as clear an idea as I can about the requirements, but I will still adjust and think of new things as I write.

With novel, or even short-story, writing, I often have a vague impression, one moment in time, one line, and then I have to write and see what coalesces.  Writing brings the ideas in the back of my head into more focus, and after I have written a draft, I can then go back and construct a more formal plan for a rewrite.  It tends to feel a bit like automatic writing, sometimes, though.  I have been told by more than one person in my lifetime that it seems like I have a plan when someone else reads that first draft, but I don't.

I can honestly say that I had no idea where this NaNo tale was going, or any of the stops along the way, or who would be making those stops.  Now, I have a couple of characters with names, one without, someone who is mentioned a couple of times and an object.  I am beginning to see something in the fog, but I don't yet know what it is.

Several themes, motifs and symbols seem to have cropped up already, possibly foreshadowing events.  I look forwards to finding out what they are.  Some part of my brain must have an idea.  Grey seems important, as does the idea of space, and there is something in there about the past and the future.

I suppose, if I am to find out, I had best just keep writing and hope that my mind is not actually being the conduit for the elder gods.  I don't fancy manifesting Cthulu in my subconscious.  Could put a bit of a dampener on my day.