It's that delightfully wonderful time of the year:
NaNoWriMo, a time when anyone who's EVER wanted to write gets the invitation to join in a worldwide write-a-thon.
I highly recommend everyone try it. It'll give you a new respect for what your favorite authors do on a regular basis, and heck...it might even give you a start to a new calling!
The thing is is that there are two types of folks in this world: those who want (or HAVE) to tell a story, and those who want to be told a story. And the beautiful thing is that there is plenty of room for either one in this world.
What I love most about NaNo is that it's that one time of the year when I get to be totally selfish about my writing. The rest of the year, when friends/family want to get together, or when the fella/fellas are at the door, expecting some of my time---well, I have to juggle it all. I have to don that superhero cape and frantically try to keep all the balls in the air because the "normals" just don't understand that the voices in my head really never go away, I just manage to put them on "mute" from time to time.
When NaNo comes, I get that "excuse" to shut my door, stay in my jammies, roll out the red carpet for all the voices in my head, and throw a party for us all....and what a party it can be...(although yesterday was not a very auspicious start to NaNo).....
Here's how my first day went:
I woke up at quarter of six, took the dog out, and wrote 3 pages.
WHEEEEEThen I took a break...had breakfast...took care of household chores (i.e. spent WAAAAAY too much time on email/Internet), etc...and wrote another page.
YEAThen I decided that having the Internet and my manuscript on the same machine was too much of a temptation to avoid writing, so I dug out an old laptop, opened up the futon in my living room, and created a little writer's campsite (complete with bedrest, snuggly blanket, drink, snack, research book, and lapdesk--to avoid my legs' getting too hot from the laptop).
After writing another 3 pages, the dog came along and decided my campsite looked like a great place to take a nap, and he
demanded that I take one with him (what can I say, he's the boss most days).
So we napped. And here's where the problem kicked in. The laptop was an old laptop that I only use for word processing.
Now, a little aside here. I am a fastidious back-upper. I have a copy of my manuscript(s) on my harddrive, on my jump drive, and usually on a floppy disk. Plus, I have my MS Word programmed to auto-backup every five minutes. Unfortunately, it has literally been years since I've used this laptop, and in my haste to get to writing for the day, I didn't even think to check the settings on that MS Word. (Those of you with Spideysense will now start tingling because you can sense imminent danger.)
So in the process of getting up from my nap (see the aforementioned demand from the dog), I moved the laptop, and it accidentally unplugged. And guess what? It was set only to backup when Word shut down.
I lost those 3 pages of manuscript.
BLEEPITY-BLEEP-BLEEPAfter a cry-curse-fest, I sat down, started up again, and rewrote those pages while the essence of them was still fresh in my mind. And the surprising thing is that I feel like they're actually better and stronger than the first version.
I really hope this isn't an omen for how my NaNo is gonna go!
So the moral of the story is....I just made some mighty tasty lemonade out of some pretty rotten lemons....anyone thirsty? (Oh, and the other moral: always backup, but that's pretty self-explanatory)
Until next time....
--Jacki
http://www.readjackiking.com/PS, for those of you keeping score at home, here are my current stats:
NaNo word count - 2159
MySpace friends - 140 (wooo hoooo!)
Facebook - 12
Friendster - 4
