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Saturday, March 21, 2009

Days 7 and 8 of writing and the beginning of week 2

Days 5 and 6 were spent away from the keyboard but the time I spent in my mind was rather fruitful.  Although it was another tiring day at "the office" I managed to come home , make dinner, blog a bit and write.  

The "word for today" on day 7 was (according to the widget on my blog) grit.  Besides (noun) coarse dirt or sand, or (verb) clench, it also means fortitude and determination and can mean fearlessness too.  

It was a fortune cookie moment for me when I saw the word grit.
So, I grit my teeth and rearranged my thoughts and continued writing.  I did not get caught up with the original count goal but my adrenaline has  been pumping harder as the story outline is finally being sketched.  

Chapter 6 of No Plot, No Problem (week 2) says a lot but if I get into the details here it might ruin it for some people who haven't read the book.  So, I'll just say that according to Baty, it is OK that you don't have a plot by week 2...  

Now, this makes me raise my eyebrows so high they hit the sky.  I think the point is to get all that writing that was bottled up in you, out there, regardless of quality.  I must admit it was like turning on the water at a rusty spigot and having all of the old brown water spew out.  It is icky, but since I have left that Edit Monster at the gate it doesn't really bother me!  After a while the water should start to clear up...I hope.

However, for me, going on any further without a plot seems outrageous.   I am going to add a little bit if my own "wisdom" here and take a day to write my mind map for the story.  My word count is at a little over 6,000 (not good for the end of day 8 but I still feel comfortable.)

I'll try to add a bit of my mind map and my latest word count by the end of today, day 9 of writing the "strangest book ever".

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