3-Day Novel Finished

Complete at 37,000 words. There are places where the draft could benefit from being filled out some, or even a great deal. I try to plan these things so they can grow up to be full novels someday, and there’s a lot here that could still be explored.

Still, it feels good to have reached the end of the story for now. I was having my doubts earlier today.

The ending took my completely by surprise, and came quite a bit sooner than expected, which didn’t hurt anything.

I’d also like to thank Dylan Rhymes, whose album Dead Famous has allowed me to survive the last 5 hours. I think it also had a major and hopefully good influence on the tone of my ending.

That’s all for now. Time to rest, eat, and remember my name.

Slowly Gathering Steam

I wrote about 15,000 words today, which is about what I did on Sunday of last year. However, I’m still 4,000 words off my goal, which is feeling significant since I’m struggling so badly to keep up. I like the way my story’s shaping up, but I’m nowhere near as deep into it as would be comfortable. I need a monster day tomorrow to get to the end, but I have a lot of faith in the power of desperation. I’ve got to call it a night, because I’ve started writing sentences that really make no sense.

Comforting Words?

From the survival guide on the 3-Day Novel contest website:

For most, the first day is the toughest. Veterans are almost unanimous in their belief that if one even gets out of the starting gate on the first day they’re doing well. There may be a lot of “window staring,” pacing, wishing to be anywhere else. It may be best to just keep in mind no one knows anything the first day.

I remember Day One being tough last year, but this year it seems much harder. The day’s almost over and I’m hovering around 5,000 words. I take a moment to notice that, on any normal day, I would be delighted at having clocked 5,000 words. For the 3-Day Novel, that’s not nearly enough.

I spent a lot of time this morning refining my outline, because I felt I needed to get more of a handle on the plot before I could plunge in. The writing proper has gone hideously slowly (considering the circumstances) ever since I began it. To make matters worse, a Facebook buddy of mine who’s also doing the contest keeps breezily posting stuff like “10,000 words in. Having a dinner break.” I just about had a heart attack this morning when I sat down to get started at 8 a.m. and saw he was already something like 4,200 words in. Note to self: stay off Facebook. It’s not a race. (And I am glad the contest is going smoothly for him this year).

What has caught me totally off guard today: I have this powerful and constant urge to have a nap. I’ve had something like three naps today. That’s extremely strange for me–when I’m sick, my husband has to engage in some serious cajoling to get me to lie down even when I can barely see straight.

I’m hoping the contest’s comforting words are correct, and that I hit more of a stride tomorrow. The amazing thing about writing is that experience often seems to help only in the sense that it tells me I can get through whatever thing I’m taking on. The actual shape of the experience always seems to be different. Every novel is new, every project is new. No 3 days writing can ever go the same way.

Here’s hoping for at least a couple thousand more words before bed–and 6,000 or so would be nice

Reading for Virtue

I love reading and spend most of my spare time doing it, but I’ve been wondering lately what it means to read for virtue. There are books I want to have read, but that I don’t enjoy reading, usually classics of some sort. What’s going on when a book is a slog?

In many cases, I end up feeling rewarded by the book even though it wasn’t “fun.” For example, I’ll confess that Ursula LeGuin’s Left Hand of Darkness was not a pleasant reading experience for me–I couldn’t stand Genly Ai, who is, unfortunately, the main character. I’m so glad I read the book, however, because the world-building was incredible, and I loved Estraven. LeGuin’s exploration of gender in the book was fascinating, as was her use of invented folklore.

Another example, more recent for me, was Samuel R. Delaney’s Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand. When I first picked up the book, it blew me away. The prologue seared me. Unfortunately, the rest of the book was paced quite differently. I stuck with it because the book has incredible prescience–though written in the 80s, it describes something very like the Internet. Delaney is also amazing at world-building (maybe this is a theme for me), at describing settings, and at inventing believable alien cultures. He plays a language game in the book that rips apart conventional notions of gender. The plot, however, moves slowly. Delaney ends up resolving the book with respect to the main character’s knowledge, but leaves other major threads unresolved. All of this was unsatisfying to me, and difficult to get through. Delaney’s afterword was one of the most incomprehensible things I’ve ever read.

In both these cases, I’m glad to have read the book, but I wonder what it is that can make me find value in world-building, say, and yet makes it hard for me to keep the pages turning. As a writer, if readers came to me with a problem like that, I would blame myself and revise more. As a reader, however, I still tend to blame myself–in the case of these classics, I tend to assume that I’m missing something. What’s the deal with this discrepancy? I’d welcome any comments on how to think about this.

3-Day Novel Coming Up

Last year, I participated in the 3-Day Novel contest, and this year I’m doing it again, in just a few days, over Labor Day weekend. I’m trying things a bit differently this year. I’ve been outlining in advance, which I don’t normally do for these writing marathons, and I’m curious to see how it will change the experience. My novel will again be urban fantasy–my short fiction is never in that genre, but all my novel ideas seem to be.

Good luck to anyone else participating. Last year, I enjoyed blogging during the event and sharing my progress with the world, and I expect to do so again.