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".

Day 5 & 6 of writing, or not writing...

Like I posted on my regular blog, my new job requires a healthy mind and soul, both of which I am not so confident about any more...  The first day at the new office was actually a vampire disguised as an office... sucking the energy out of me slowly as the day went by.  

...

So that's my excuse for not writing anything yesterday or today.  I was tempted to read the chapter for the "second week in writing" of "No Plot, No Problem", but since it is technically not the second week, I have postponed it.

However, I did read this very interesting blog by literary agent Nathan Bransford about characters. It was like the universe answered my question about the woman who popped up on my radar during Day 4.   To quote myself, I ask "But this new character...what does she want?"  

It turns out that was precisely the question I was supposed to ask.  If she doesn't answer me, she will go into my "embryo" file.  I have a suspicion that she will answer me.  Like she is ready to burst out "Alien" style.  I feel it in the area where my lungs are.  (Have you ever had that feeling before?)  

So what happens to the original main character?  The little girl who wanted to live in the town with cobblestone streets and a house wrapped in vines?  Let's wait and see...

"Who are you?" said the Caterpillar.

Day 4 of writing

Ah, I have reached the "required" number of words for the 4th day.  My count is currently at 5,052.  I should be happy but I feel a little dizzy. Another character has popped up.  Out of the blue.  I don't know what she is doing on the pages I write now.  She has nothing to do with the story I've been telling for the past 3 days, as far as I can tell.  The town I wrote about the other day is working out nicely.  It is a nice town.  But this new character...what does she want?

I see the road ahead of me, but I have no idea where it is going to lead....

I haven't been this scared in a long time.  Eeek.

Day 3 of writing

Although I can't go into the details I will try to post on my progress as the adventure unfolds.

My main character (MC) did not like the little village I put her in.  It was too dusty and "old".

I don't even know why I wrote "village", it just popped out but since we are not supposed to edit, I kept going.  She raised her eyebrows, shook her head sideways, took my hand and gave me a tour of her "town".  My MC now lives in a town.

A small town, but a town nonetheless.

She finds something on the outskirts of the town though...it looked just like a building I had found about a month ago on my excursion in Kitano, Kobe...this is what it looks like:

This is what I saw when I peeked through a wooden gate...

and this is what my MC  had seen as well.  I had no idea she was already traveling with me.

Yesterday was a doozy so I didn't get to write, which is a bad BAD thing to do...you should NOT break the flow.  However, what is done is done.  So today the journey must tread forward for about 2,500 words.

Time Finder Day 6 (Friday) and leaving my edit monster behind for the first day of writing

9:00-10:00 Woke up, got ready for work, went to work.

11:20-3:20 Worked (1 hour lunch break: read "Territory")

4:00-6:00 Checked e-mails, net surfing, phone calls read books.

6:00-7:00 Cooked curry and read.

7:00-10:00 Did some writing and research.

10:00-11:00 Ate dinner, watched the news on TV.

11:00-12:00 Personal hygiene stuff and got some zzzzzzzs.

This day was Friday the 13th, and it it didn't disappoint.  Work turned out to be horrible.  I was totally tired out by my week and my brain decided to take an early day off.  I thought I would crash when I got home, but since the whole day brought me down, I just became reeeaaaallllly ..... slow.

However, I did start writing some background on my story (I will call this my map)...it all "came to me" as I was taking the train home.  My thoughts about my "failure" gave me the first line!  Whether I will use it in the final draft is something I will worry about several months from now.  

 Because....

right now, for the first draft, we are supposed to leave our mind's "editing monster" at the gate. 

By leaving your edit monster behind while you are on your novel journey means:

that you can concentrate on pumping out the words.  

You are not supposed to erase anything you write no matter how bad you might think it is. 

(Baty suggests changing the fonts to italic or changing the colors to white so that you don't have to see what you wanted to erase.  That way you can still have everything included in your word count.)

So, with my 1,747 word map in hand, my edit monster left at the gate, I enter the world of "the strangest book ever" (the file name for my novel until I find my real title).  

.....

Hey, what was that sound?