NaNoWriMo Eve

Yesterday I had thought that I should follow another blogger’s example to write a short post every day about something that had brightened my day. There were a few unexpected nice things yesterday. I probably should have blogged about it to preserve the good karma for today or whatever. Because today sucked! Not the whole day to be honest, but the afternoon did, because I screwed up and had to deal with the consequences. Which weren’t all that horrible, but I just felt so so bad about screwing up and was and still am beating myself up over it. At least I hope I’ve learned from that mistake and that it won’t happen again.

The actual main reason for this post is another one and that is to announce that I’m participating in NaNoWriMo 2012. Yes, I’m planning to write a 50.000 word novel in November. Yes, I’m probably insane. Yes, I’ll do it anyway. Not in my mother tongue German, but in English. Did I mention my insanity :-)?
But seriously, I realized that my creative mind / imagination or whatever you want to call it, is mostly, if not exclusivly working in English nowadays. Probably because I read most novels in English and watch most TV shows in English. And novels and TV shows usually are what’s prompting my muse to spew out ideas of how a specific fictional storyline could continue. How I would love to see it continue. I usually keep all these ideas to myself, it’s my muse and my mind and my imagination after all ;-). I dabbled with fanfiction (for a German TV show) a few years ago though and I enjoyed writing these. I never dared to write something similar in English, probably because there are already so many fanfic writers out there. I didn’t think I’d have something new and unique to add.

But somehow a few weeks ago this new idea got stuck in the creative corners of my brain and even though it was prompted by the “what movie would I’d love to see Patrick Dempsey do someday” question, which sometimes runs through my mind, it got away from that pretty quickly. Well, my main character still looks like Patrick Dempsey to me, and I’d still love to see him in a movie based on something like my story, but that’s not the main reason for my attempt to write the story in the first place.

I have no idea if my English actually is good enough to pull this off or if I’ll end up with a boring, generic and uninspired story in 30 days. I also have no idea if I’ll be able to transfer the movie from my mind into words on my screen, but I’m determined to try. Because if I don’t try it now, when will I ever? Carpe diem and all that stuff.
I also tried to prepare for this adventure as extensively as possible, but there are still some blanks in the detailed plot and some murky areas in my character’s background story. And I’m still not quite sure if I’ve nailed down the motivation of the three main characters to act and react the way they do. I hope the muse will help me with that at every step of the way.

Right now, a little over 2 hours away from 1st November, I’m starting to get a vbit nervous. Because 50.000 words in 30 days is huge for someone who’s experience of writing English fiction consists of a few very short (100 words exactly) MerDer fanfiction prompts.

But like stated above: it’s now or never. 2012 brought a few very big chances in my life, so it felt like the right year to dare and try to follow through on something that the avid reader that I am has always dreamed of doing. Writing a novel.

I thought about apologizing in advance for the lack of blog posts over the next few weeks, but as I haven’t posted a lot over the last few months, I don’t think November will be any different and hence no noticable change. Or maybe writing constantly will also fuel my desire to write mor blog posts about stuff. We’ll see.
I had orginally also planned to actually start writing at midnight and make good use of the fact that tomorrow is a public holiday in Germany and that I’ve got Friday off from work as well. But right now I’m so freaking tired, that I don’t think I’ll be able to stay awake till midnight and neither will I be able to write anything coherent after midnight. I just hope that slight headache and exhaustion aren’t the first signs of a cold, because that’s something I really can do without for the next few weeks.

So I’ve decided to start NaNoWriMo after a good night’s sleep first thing tomorrow morning. Or maybe not “first” thing, but after a shower and some breakfast :-) I’m nervous and excited and giddy all the same. Weird feeling, but I guess I’m not the only one tonight/tomorrow who feels that way.

This entry was posted in Archive and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

6 Responses to NaNoWriMo Eve

  1. Nat says:

    Go you! :D *cheers*. I reckon it’s probably even easier to write in English :). Less complicated in my opinion. I’m sure you’ll pull this off! I’m about to start #AcWriMo, sooo excited! Can’t wait to read what you wrote in the end!

  2. Hope says:

    Good luck! You can do it!

  3. ariaadagio says:

    You can do it, and it’s not crazy! 50,000 words sounds like a lot, but I promise you it flies once your muse starts hammering your brain. My #1 recommendation is, don’t try to make it perfect, don’t even try to make it good. Save editing for later, after Nano is done. Just keep going until you hit The End. Then worry about making it a masterpiece.

  4. liljan98 says:

    Thanks. And good luck with #AcWriMo. I really have to do that one in December LOL

  5. liljan98 says:

    Thanks! I’ll do my best and I’m having fun so far. Well for the first 1000 words at least ;-)

  6. liljan98 says:

    Thanks for the encouragement. I already realized (after 1000 words *g*) that the hardest part will be to turn off the inner editor, because it’s so tempting to go back to the previous paragraph and work on improving what I’ve already written. Right now I’m counting on my muse to keep pushing me to just tell the complete story first and to think about editing later.

Comments are closed.