Well, I am pleased to report that so far, the Clarion West Writeathon has been a big success for me. I made a committment to write 1,000 words per day, and I haven’t missed a day yet. (I have missed my word goal on a couple of days … but I’ve done the butt-in-seat every day, and my *average* has been well over 1k per day).
I’ve been working on the first draft of B3 (which has a title, but I don’t feel ready to put it out in the world yet) and have gone from 11k to 40k in three weeks. It’s really starting to feel like a book.
I have to admit, I’ve never liked word-count commitments. It feels so finicky. But I needed to try something different, to switch up my process, and it has worked very well. I’m still unclear on a lot of story points, but I’m writing through that uncertainty and in the process, discovering a lot of things about my story that I didn’t expect. I’ve discovered, for example, that my villain is totally different than who I thought it was. And the villain’s motivations make so much sense within the story as it has developed, I’m getting that spooky, intelligent-designy feeling … like, subconsciously, I must have known the story would turn out this way all along. I just didn’t “know” it. I kind of love it when that happens.
I am really looking forward to the long weekend (with *bonus!* Tuesday and Wednesday off as well) and some nice long interrupted writing time. I might just even be able to finish the first draft of this sucker. Ambitious much? Me?
By the way, if you’re a participant in the Clarion West Writeathon, don’t forget my standing offer to pledge a dollar if you post a sentence from your WIP! Only 20 people have taken me up on it so far. Do you really want to see me get off that cheaply? Come on! Sock it to me!
