30 Days of NaNoWriMo 2 – Day 15: The Double

So, today went alright. Not as awesomely as I was hoping though.

Because, while getting ready to go out and get breakfast (instead of the jacket I previously mentioned because it was raining and the water wasn’t running in my apartment)… I suddenly had an idea.

When it comes to daily writing, I’m learning that my MO is this: I write scenes. I don’t beat myself up too much about word count (at least at the moment). Instead, I try to finish up an entire scene, regardless of whether it’s short or long, as long as it’s strong. I’m okay with that right now… but I want it change.

And today turned into an attempt to make that change.

Only… not by pushing myself to write more than the one scene at a time. Because I realize that I need time to recoup after a writing session; I need time to think about the next scene, feel it out, and find a starting point.

So then . . . how can I reliably double the amount I write in one day?

By doing two scenes a day.

Now… maybe this is a complete no-brainer for some writers, but, for me… it feels like a revolution. Genuinely, the idea blew my mind. Just the simplicity of it… If I really like having a solid writing session that’s a few hours long, during which I complete one scene… why not just do that more instead of trying to write past the one scene in one sitting, at which point I always feel like I’m forcing it? This year’s NaNoWriMo is teaching me that I can just write pretty much any time of the day, anywhere, in any medium… so why not use that flexibility to do two sessions a day, no matter where I am? It didn’t just feel like an idea, it felt like a solution.

So, today turned into a hybrid experiment.

Step 1) Write early in the morning/after getting home (left over from the experiment I was originally going to run today).

Step 2) Do anything else.

Step 3) Write again much, much later, after taking time to think about my next scene.

How did it go?

Well, the first step turned out to be super, duper easy; as I’ve learned, doing what I always assumed was bad–thinking of writing as work–is just the solution for my motivation problem. Sit down. Just do it. Treat it like a job; you love the process enough to avoid feeling like it’s a job once you start.

On top of that, I had my first scene with post-conflict Modis, so the writing itself is still coming very easily. Almost too easily; I got to the point where I had to decide if I was actually giving Modis a familiar, something I’d been really unsure about. When I first outlined this scene, he had a bunch of them, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about it–if it was total overkill and too campy. But then, through the sheer, beautiful magic of writing, an answer came from a simple concept I fleshed out earlier in the manuscript. The process just handed me a simple, charming answer (he does have a familiar, but just the one, and it doesn’t talk). It was a pretty gratifying writing session.

Step 2 was also easy. I mean, of course it was. But it’s also where my experiment ran off the road. I got so wrapped up in doing other things–reading training material for work, reading not training material for work, doing maintenance, playing video games, etc.–that I wound up…

… not really thinking about what the next scene would be.

Of course, the real danger is in the shrug. “Well, I already wrote today, so whatever.” Which I did. LOL Not going to lie about it; I 100% shrugged and actually said that to myself.

But I’m aware how completely that could put a cork in the Doubles idea. So, I’m posting this, then hopping in bed, waking up early to get my first scene for the day out of the way, before work… And then seeing how well a second scene during lunch/when I get home goes.

I’m not sure how many words I’ll be able to get at work, but upward and onward, right?

Words for the Day: 545

NaNoWriMo Total: 6,607