It's been a while since I've written because I've been busy writing. I've passed the half way point with my NaNoWriMo novel. Yeah! It's been so much fun. I'm loving it! I look forward to writing every day and haven't experienced any of the "second week let down" that I was warned about in the book, No Plot, No Problem. I am finding it both challenging and rewarding to be finally writing about my family. I'm trying to put many of the family stories into the novel and keep the people as true to what I've heard them to be as possible. The characters I didn't know I'm having a ball creating. I am a little concerned what others will think of them though. You can't have a book full of all totally nice people or the story would be boring. So I'm trying to create realistic people with strengths and weaknesses, good sides and bad. I want them to be believable. I'm very pleased with the story lines I've come up with to weave the family stories together too. This is just too much fun!
The NaNoWriMo contest has absolutely been the best excuse for writing this novel. I love having the support of fellow writers who are going through the same things at the same time. I love logging on to NaNoWriMo.og and reading the messages in the forums about other's experiences and challenges.
To sum up for today, my experience with novel writing has been great so far. The biggest challenge has been pacing myself... trying to decide how long to make each chapter, how often and when to use dialogue, what to minimize or skip over and what to emphasize. I can tell already that I'll have a fair amount of rewriting to do. But I'm told that's a part of the process. I guess I should expect 2 hours of re-writing for every hour of writing. Sounds like a drag but maybe that will end up being fun too. Hope so!
