MAKING PROGRESS . . .

Week three is going a little easier than last week. I am now sixteen days in to the NaNoWriMo challenge, and have 34,103 words. Another thousand words and I will be ten thousand words above the halfway point, so I am pretty much on target. This has been an interesting experience, unlike any other writing I have ever attempted.

Because the emphasis is on QUANTITY of words, over QUALITY of writing, it is very freeing. I have given my internal editor the month off, and refuse to even worry about how good my story is or how important it might be. I am just completely immersing myself in the joy of simply WRITING. After November 30, when the dust has settled, I can sit back and begin to review the story and make a judgment as to its value at that point. Honestly, though, I probably wont even do that til after all the holidays. It will be good to put it aside and forget all about it for a month, then in January, after Christmas is all put away and recovered from, I can begin to read through and evaluate if there is worth to what I wrote, and what can stay and what needs to go . . . looking for inconsistencies and places that need to be revised or fleshed out . . . finding characters to weed out or revamp, etc. I have no doubt that I will enjoy that process when the time for it comes, because I always love revising and editing my writing, watching it slowly come together as I face the flaws and work to smooth the rough places. But that time is NOT now . . .

Interestingly, enough, I shared my story (61 single-spaced pages) in all its spectacularly unedited glory with a friend today. Normally that would be hard for me to do. Usually it is like sharing your baby . . . holding it up for people to criticize . . . Under other circumstances I would be feeling vulnerable and defensive and very, very protective. Perhaps I would feel that way about THIS story, if I had started with a storyline in mind, like so many did.

But when I began this 'adventure' I had NOTHING . . . No ideas at ALL . . . no story line . . . no characters in mind . . . not even any idea of the KIND of story I wished to write about. Because of that, I feel this curious sense of detachment with it, which is very unusual for me. Perhaps that simply means that on some level I already KNOW that it stinks (a very real possibility). I suspect, though, that it is more because I didn't PLAN this story . . . I had no expectations or dreams for it . . . so that I keep being surprised by the things the characters do and say, the little twists and turns in the plot that I didn't plan or expect. Because of that, I feel no more ownership of it than I would if a scruffy dog followed me home from the grocery store. I might feel curiosity, maybe even compassion, but I am not going to feel any sense of responsibility for it. Does that make sense? So if you say to me, "WHOA . . . that is ONE ugly puppy", I don't get defensive or hurt . . . I would simply look over at the dog, and think 'you know, she is right'. LOL . . .

So I shared it with someone who asked to read it. That is a first for me. Oh, not the first time I have shared my writing. I have done that numerous times, even submitted some for publication, and had a few pieced actually published. But I NEVER shared it (whatever 'it' was . . . a poem, a story, an essay, whatever) before *I* was pretty satisfied with the level of polishing and reworking and revising I had done . . . I had to first get it to the point that I wouldn't be embarrassed by its unfinishedness before I could share it with someone whose judgment I respected.

I think that just might be progress . . .

Or . . . now that I think of it, perhaps it is just sheer mental exhaustion . . .



LOL . . . time will tell, I suppose . . . ;o)



But in the meantime, I am enjoying the process of becoming acquainted with these people who have chosen to inhabit my story . . . It has been a pleasure to get to know them, and watch them act and react to life as it happens around them.