Check-In: Week 2, Part I

Round 1 Goals:

1. Re-read what is written on Untitled NaNoWriMo 2011 Project
2. Finish first (and only) draft of Untitled NaNoWriMo 2011 Project
   • 500 words per day except Fridays or
   • 3,000 words per week

The Actual Progress Report:
As of this morning, I'm at 75% on my read-through, according to my Kindle. (I love my Kindle.)

Everyone Else's Progress Reports

Additional Garbage Not Related to ROW80 Progress:
(You could probably stop reading now.)

The novel is largely as I remember it: Trite, uncompelling, full of cliches and contradictions, and just plain bad. (What do you expect? I wrote it.) The question other people would be asking themselves, being the writers that they are, is this: If it's so bad and you don't plan on going beyond the first draft, why finish it?

My answer is this: Out of seven Novembers, I have finished the projects in three of them. (I got 50,000 or more words all seven times, but have only typed "The End" on three of them, and one of those was done the following July.) I'm what you call a "serial starter." I start many, many projects (of varying types, actually), but follow very few to completion. I'm trying to put my November novels into that elite category. Except maybe my 2006 novel.

New question a Real Writer would ask: If you want to follow this project to completion, why stop after one draft? That's not complete. You need to revise, edit, revise, rework, restructure, revise, and edit. Why not do that?

My new answer: Because this story is not worth that much work. I never even bothered to give it a title, and that's often the first thing I do after I decide what the story is about. I just want to be able to type "The End" to bring my track record above 50%.

If that's wrong, so be it.