Monday, December 7, 2009

10,000 words ain't nothin' to be ashamed of ...

At least that's what I keep telling myself. I did not finish NaNoWriMo (a fact that I'm sure none of you are shocked by) but I'm surprisingly okay with it. I stopped because my main protagonist had the likeness of a woman, but she had no past, and therefore, no story. I realized if I wanted to write this novel (which is a character heavy novel), I have to write some background on her. I don't know why she does the things she does, and that's kind of making her feel like a character from a sitcom.

I think the reason I'm okay with this, is because it got me writing again, and that's the point of NaNoWriMo. 10,000 words is more than I have ever written on one project that wasn't intended for scholastic purposes. Far more in fact, and that's really the whole point of NaNoWriMo, to get people writing fearlessly. I am dead set on finishing this novel. It will probably be a short novel, and it's a baby step in terms of creative fiction on my behalf, but it will happen. I've put too much thought and energy into it to never see it happen. Also, I will be participating again, and hopefully around the same time next year you will see not just a "2010 NaNoWriMo Particpant" badge, but a "winner!" badge as well.

Additionally, I re-realized I my love of poetry. There's no future in poetry, except to become a teacher, and teach other students with no monetary future in the craft how to write it, and then they will teach the next generation, and so on and so forth ... but I love doing it. I also find I hate most contemporary poetry, which is kind of okay, because I think there are poets who follow in the more traditional styles and still convey a modern voice.

Back to fiction ...

I was thinking for a while that I don't want to write anymore fiction after this current project. My best prose is when I'm just writing blog like things, and while there is a market for that, I like the idea of challenging myself to find a story within all of the emototing and thoughtful phrase turning I do, which will be part of the challenge in writing Grasp (the tittle of Sonya's story).

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