Monday, November 27, 2006

time goes all too quickly (word count: 50,348 and still moving)

It is so easy for me to lose track of time! Since last posting, I’ve sailed past my six month anniversary of graduation (!!!), a trip to Nashville, Thanksgiving, and 17,000 words of my novel. Whew! And in two days, I’ll be on my way to Nebraska, again, for another huge concert. (I do love those!) Mom and I are considering the Nebraska trip a “writing trip,” so I’ll also drag my researching books and scraps of my novel along.

I’m absolutely amazed that I’ve hit the 50,000 NaNoWriMo mark. (And early, too!) I had my best day so far last Monday, when I cranked out over 5,000 words without much of a problem. When I read through it on Tuesday, I actually came across a few sentences that I liked—a rare occurrence this month! So last Monday was definitely my best writing day of the whole experience.

(Of course, I couldn’t speak coherently that evening… My fear is that I’ll wake up some morning and my brain will shrug and say, “Here’s where the illusion ends, kiddo.” And I’ll have to learn how to do something respectable, like rotate tires.) 

So, now that I’ve “won” NaNoWriMo, I have a chance to catch my breath, take a step back, and squint hard at what I’ve done. Some bits in it surprise me—there are a few touching scenes that I hadn’t planned on at all. Others, which were important ones, fell apart completely, and I need to scrape them together and decide how to fix them (or if I should toss them out). I want to get an aerial view of this story—a little space and a little height, so I can look down and see where my characters have meandered to, if they still sound right, and if their motivations ring true.

I’m also gearing up for the huge SCBWI conference in February. (SCBWI stands for Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators, which young adult literature falls into… and which is why I’m going!) I spent some time today making a huge reading list to prepare me for the conference—I want to immerse in my genre and to read the best competing titles. I’m targeting the publishing houses that will be there, so when an editor starts talking about a recent publishing phenomenon, I won’t be completely lost. I haven’t been reading much this month, and I hope to kick up the pace in December and January. New York City, here I come!—jl

Posted by Jenn Langefeld on 11/27 at 08:38 PM
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