Quantity Not Quality

I described my novel earlier today on Twitter as "in a chaotic state of crap slinging right now ;)" That sums up the feel of my writing the past 2 days. I'm just throwing words at the project, hoping to find some sense of order or purpose behind them. I, like many before me, have hit that point where my idea for the novel is solid, but the details are sketchy. In a world before NaNoWriMo, I would have stopped and given up. Instead the quest for that silly winner's badge spurs me onward. The year of my first NaNo I saw a web video interview with the the great Wil Wheaton who said (and I paraphrase as I can't remember the exact quote) it's easier to fix than to create. That has become my entire mantra of NaNoWriMo. Quantity not quality, it's ok for it to be god awful, in fact it probably WILL BE god awful at first. This is the first draft, it's called "rough" for a reason. Clean up in aisle 2 happens after November 30.

This year, however, feels like it has gotten an extra large dose of suck. Perhaps that is because I am so in love with my idea for this series of books that I want book 1 to be especially perfect. As those of you who read this blog are aware, even before I hit 25k I was feeling disenchanted with the novel. I still have full faith in the idea but I was floundering on how to make it work. Today, after crossing the 30k mark I finally figured out how to bring a more human element to the story. And it involves rewriting my main character extensively. Part of me wants to start the re-writing of Dr. Kathy Traviston, go back to the beginning and recreate her as I now see her in my mind. The other part says just give her the new personality now, at the little over halfway mark, and you can fix her first half in December. The latter part is currently winning. I have made so more highlighted notes about things that need to be more fully flushed out or flat out changed in this novel than any of my previous ones. But that is the point of NaNoWriMo.. keep moving forward. CREATE not edit.

Today's creation 1709 words, total word count 31,005. Goal for the weekend: 35k by Monday morning.