A Pantsing Experiment

Well, here it is, a week into camp nano, and rather than feeling like I wasn't going to get through it (as I did last year) I'm actually doing really well.  A  lot of this probably has something to do with a certain wordmongering friend that has been challenging me to keep my word counts up.  But another part of this is the fact that everyone is actually doing camp nano, rather than last year when it fell a little flat.

Of course, because I was basing my success this year on how I did last year (I won the July round of camp nano, but only int he last weekend when I sprinted across the finish line by writing 25k words...) it's come to my attention that I simply don't have enough story left to finish out the month.

Sure, I suppose I could stretch it out.  Write less words each day so that I don't type out that very last sentence until the last day of camp nano, but where's the fun in that?  To know I can do it and purposely slow down just so that I'm not bored for the rest of the month?  That really isn't me, something I learned my very first nano when I hit the 50k mark halfway through and decided that I couldn't stop the journey just because I'd run out of material.

Naturally, when I realized that I was about to run into the same situation (I project that this book will be completely written no later than Friday, and that's only if I take more days off like I did today) I started to worry about what I was going to do for the rest of the month.

Anyone that knows me will tell you that I think of Nano as a journey.  It's not just about getting the words on the page.  It's a self challenge.  The only person who's going to end up disappointed in the end if you don't finish, is yourself.  Of course, where you consider 'finished' is another story entirely.  Going out to the write ins and meeting other authors who are struggling with the same issues as you is another part of this journey.  As is all the ups and downs your characters give you.

To this day I have never heard a person say 'My nano novel went exactly the way I planned' because no matter how much time you put into plotting something is always going to come up in the middle of a word war that throws you for a loop and has you furiously trying to figure out where that little twist is going to fit into the rest of the story.

Even if my word count is done early, stopping when it's over, to me, is a little like ordering the wrong meal at a restaurant.  It's food, and it's good.  It will satisfy the hunger that brought you to that restaurant, but at the end of the meal, there's always something missing.  That little extra something that you know you would have gotten if you'd just ordered that other meal you had been contemplating.

Nano runs for a month, and I think the experience should be a month long.

So this month, I've decided to do a little experiment.  I'm going to try pantsing a novel.  That's right, you heard me (or read me?).  The queen of planning is going to grab a story by the horns and give it a whirl.  I even have the idea picked out (one that I've looked at before and dismissed as not catching my attention suddenly jumped off the page today and shouted out an idea that makes it so much more interesting than it was before).

Wish me luck!  As soon as I finish Pandora a new novel will be written, and I don't know what's going to happen.  As a good friend told me, it's time to jump off the cliff with my eyes closed.  No seeing where I'm going, no aiming for the soft bushes.  It's time I landed in the wild roses and got skewered by thousands of tiny thorns.

Stop and Smell the Roses

Today I heard a phrase I'm sure I've heard a thousand time in my life.  Stop and Smell the roses.  I don't think that anyone has specifically said it to me, but I've always known what people have meant by it.  That you can't rush through life.  Sometimes you have to take a break and make sure to enjoy the little things in life.

So when I heard the phrase today, I couldn't help but really stop and think about it.  Mostly because, at the time, I was actually watching a show and procrastinating on my writing.  (Well, rewriting.  I do have an editing goal I need to try and keep as I have beta readers waiting for it.)

I've never really been the one to be busy all the time.  However, in the last year I've found myself doing more and more things, and therefor finding my schedule getting more and more full.  There are weeks when I almost never go home after work.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining.  I love going out with my friends.  I love my critique group and all the different things I've been doing since starting writing.

So now, for the first time in my life, I find myself actually able to appreciate the saying.  I understand what it's like to get so caught up in everything that's been going on with my life that I forget to stop and see or appreciate all those little things.  I've done it, where all I can think about is the stress of getting a book written, or edited and forget that I love this.  I love creating a story, and there's nothing I want more than to share those stories with everyone else.

Of course, getting stressed means I start to feel overwhelmed.  When that happens I tend to stop working on whatever it is I need to get done.  Unfortunately that means I start smelling the roses a little too much.  I just stop.  I'll do pretty much anything to not work on the writing or editing that I have to do.  Today that happened in the form of watching the first season of Dead Like Me.

I know how to stop and smell the roses.  I do it all the time, even when I really shouldn't be.  That doesn't mean that I disagree with the message of it.  It doesn't matter what's going on in your life.  How stressful everything is, or how much you  have to do, every once in a while, you need to stop and take a deep breath.  Look around and realize that life isn't always about that to do list.  Sometimes it's about taking those thirty minutes you don't think you can spare to have a meal in the park while listening to the birds sing.  Sometimes it's finding the time in a week to watch that show you absolutely adore, because it inspires you, or even just entertains you.

Sometimes it's not about doing something.  Sometimes it's about not doing something.

Unfortunately for me, right now it has to be about doing something.  The roses will be there when I'm done, though, and I'm looking forward to smelling them again.