Checking In

Let's talk.

As I said in my introductory post, I'm not a Writer™ -- not by any stretch. In fact, my participation in writing events like National Novel Writing Month and A Round of Words in 80 Days would make the likes of Ann Rice and Alma Hromic spit fire and brimstone at the very audacity that I might dare put pen to paper. Or words to screen. Or whatever.

As I also said in that same post, I tend not to do much writing when it's not November. (This is more evidence that I am not a Writer™ if you needed any.)

ROW80 is a wonderful idea. I had hoped that playing in a non-NaNoWriMo playground, I might write when November is over. Alas, it's not happening so much. (Case in point: January 12 was the third check-in request, and this entry is my first -- a day later.)

My progress thus far: After ten days of the event, three have had zero words. One other has had fewer words than my daily goal of 750 words. No days have gone over 1,000. My current count, according to the sum of 750.com's reporting, is 5,295 words. My tracking spreadsheet says I should be at 7,500. (Well, 8,250 after today.) It's safe to say I'm not applying myself.

Ms. Nolan, founder of ROW80, had stated that she didn't intend to rehash the "pantser versus plotter" debate, but for the sake of full disclosure, I'm going to reveal which I am: I'm a pantser, all the way. This has its disadvantages, particularly when I have no idea what to write next. The term is "writing yourself into a corner" or some such.

One reason I don't plan, beyond being lazy, is that knowing where a story is going doesn't mean I'll actually be able to make it get there. Unless everyone is robotic and does things "according to the plan" with no room for surprise. I get bored with the story if I know where it's going, and if I'm bored, I can't write it.

Normally, my way around this is to get a flash of a future scene while I'm writing the current one, then try to manipulate characters and events to make the future scene happen. It doesn't always work, and with this untitled piece I'm writing now, I'm not even sure of the true nature of the beast -- how do my characters figure out what they're up against if I don't even know yet myself?

It's frustrating me, and it's making me not so eager to hit the writing each day. However, I do want to make one thing clear. I am not quitting. I refuse to quit.

I'm a pep-talker in my local NaNoWriMo group, rallying the participants of our region-against-region word count challenge to attain great heights of verbosity. What I say every year is that the only way to fail at NaNoWriMo (or any writing project or challenge) is to give up. Even if I don't write 60,000 words over the course of ROW80 (my ultimate goal), I will still have written more words than if I had not participated. Continuing to write means I will have more words by the end than if I stop now. Even if that means I won't "win" or "succeed" or whatever terminology you want to use for this challenge, I'll still be able to call it my own form of victory.

I've traveled to a few of the blogs in the Blog Hop for this check-in, and I'm in awe of some of the word counts. I'm thrilled at the "success so far" stories. Keep up the great work, everyone! If, by some strange fluke, you've come here and have chosen to quit, remember me and don't quit.

After all, you can't win if you don't play.