I’m approaching the 20,000 word mark for National Novel Writing Month. That puts me at 100-and-something pages into my crime novel. In two-and-a-half weeks, I’ll have a full draft. Unless I go into utter self-destruction (not an impossible scenario ;) )
This morning, I experienced one of those goosebump-inducing moments of creativity. I hadn’t planned it. It certainly wasn’t me running the show— call it subconscious, or The Great Creator, or The Muse, or whatever— but I had one of those happy, buzzing episodes that carries you through all the writing sessions where you feel like Stephen King says— “sometimes you’re just shoveling shit from the seated position.”
Check this out: I had a character I knew from the onset of the project I would introduce. Let’s call him The Henchman. And I also had a story turn I’ve known for a long time I’d use. It’s a character’s past incident that moves the story forward. We’ll call it The Bad Thing Our Bad Guy Did. [I’m hoping if I’m vague enough, you’ll still want to read this sucker when I’m finished].
This morning, when I went to write the first scene with The Henchman, I realized how awesome it would be if he had been a witness or participant to The Bad Thing Our Bad Guy Did. It would all tie together like twine and a bow on a perfectly wrapped Christmas present.
Two unrelated story elements smashing together in a way that seems preconceived? It’ll make me look some Plot Genius, like I planned the whole thing out. And all I did was show up and connect the dots.
This got me thinking of how results rarely reflect the thousands of hours put in to get the results.
You’ve all experienced this in your own lives. I get to admire and compare/despair from the sidelines. I call it the Where’s Mine Syndrome.
Let’s say you have some great, high-paying, powerful job. I’ll look at it longingly. Why can’t I have that seven figure job? Never mind your spending years climbing the corporate ladder, burning sleepless nights away from your kids, and eating from a vending machine until you couldn’t look at one more Funyun.
Or you play the cello with amazing skill and tone. Where’s My Cello Skills? Why can’t I play like that? I haven’t considered your blisters, the grade school teasing, or the hours in front of a swinging metronome.
Hiked Mt. Everest, did you? I want to do that. Where’s My Everest?
On and on.
For me, working on this novel is a grind. I’ve been posting NaNoWriMo word counts. I swear, I’m not putting them out there to brag. If you’ve met me for even ten minutes, you know I have a ton of character flaws— and overestimating my worth and high self-esteem aren’t among them. I post them to show you, day-by-day, I’m building the work. It takes a little effort every day, and it’s a hard effort. I wouldn’t say I love hard efforts. I’m more like the Dorothy Parker saying, “I hate writing but I love having written.”
NaNoWriMo teaches me so much about consistency and keeping appointments with my creativity. I need to average 1,622 words per day to get to 50k by November 30th. If I miss 4 days that average per day jumps up to over 1,900. That makes me reflect on all the days, weeks, years I’ve said, I’ll do it tomorrow. I’m too busy, too tired, too distracted— I’ll write tomorrow.
If something’s important, I need to show up for it every day. The payoff is not only the mountain I’m climbing inch by inch, but the feeling I get when I can check off the box for the day.
Drop us a line in the comments. Do you look at other people’s results? Or do you see the work behind it? What’s something you can do today towards something important to you?
See you in a week with another NaNoWriMo update!