I'm surprised to discover that I've written almost nothing about NaNoWriMo on this blog. I mentioned it before I did it, and I posted when I finished and that seems to have been it. I really enjoyed doing NaNo the last time I did it, which it turns out was FOUR YEARS AGO! WTF happened there?
Well, of course I know what happened. In 2005 I was working on the Magic book so I didn't want to mess up my flow with a different project. In 2006 I wasn't writing ANYTHING and I was creating a crapload of code and sort of unsure what I was doing writing-wise. 2007 … I'm not really sure why I didn't last year, it just didn't feel right. This year it was mentioned on a mailing list I'm on and it did feel right so I signed up.
Of course I've written just over six thousand words so far, which puts me … about six thousand words behind. D'oh! Part of the whole NaNo scheme is to paint yourself into a corner by announcing to the whole world you're doing it so here's my page where you can see the current wordcount. Of course, this blog is littered with me setting writing goals and watching them blow right past but I'm hoping this one will recapture some of the magic of the last NaNo. Look, if I could do it writing mainly on the train to and from work I sure as hell ought to be able to do it on my half-assed quasi-employed schedule I run these days. So here I go painting myself in a corner again. :-)
Today I made a real effort to put some words down and found a new trick that seems to shut down my procrastination methods. I ignored the word count, I ignored my timers, and I walked away from my desktop with it's various blinking lights and attention demands. Took the laptop into the living room, turned off the wireless and opened the "full screen mode" of my word processor. (I use Scrivener for writing these days, keeping TextEdit for code. (And I apparently never wrote a post about Scrivener either. Man. They should get some real talent in this dump of a blog!)) I put a DVD-Audio disc in the player (Talking Heads - True Stories) and just wrote for the length of the album. Then I got up, did some housework. played a couple of videogames then put on another disc (Remain in Light this time) and repeated. Somehow ignoring the word count was the magic key to writing a bunch.
Well, of course I know what happened. In 2005 I was working on the Magic book so I didn't want to mess up my flow with a different project. In 2006 I wasn't writing ANYTHING and I was creating a crapload of code and sort of unsure what I was doing writing-wise. 2007 … I'm not really sure why I didn't last year, it just didn't feel right. This year it was mentioned on a mailing list I'm on and it did feel right so I signed up.
Of course I've written just over six thousand words so far, which puts me … about six thousand words behind. D'oh! Part of the whole NaNo scheme is to paint yourself into a corner by announcing to the whole world you're doing it so here's my page where you can see the current wordcount. Of course, this blog is littered with me setting writing goals and watching them blow right past but I'm hoping this one will recapture some of the magic of the last NaNo. Look, if I could do it writing mainly on the train to and from work I sure as hell ought to be able to do it on my half-assed quasi-employed schedule I run these days. So here I go painting myself in a corner again. :-)
Today I made a real effort to put some words down and found a new trick that seems to shut down my procrastination methods. I ignored the word count, I ignored my timers, and I walked away from my desktop with it's various blinking lights and attention demands. Took the laptop into the living room, turned off the wireless and opened the "full screen mode" of my word processor. (I use Scrivener for writing these days, keeping TextEdit for code. (And I apparently never wrote a post about Scrivener either. Man. They should get some real talent in this dump of a blog!)) I put a DVD-Audio disc in the player (Talking Heads - True Stories) and just wrote for the length of the album. Then I got up, did some housework. played a couple of videogames then put on another disc (Remain in Light this time) and repeated. Somehow ignoring the word count was the magic key to writing a bunch.