Writing a book Gangnam Style

Morning everyone this is McH.  I know it has been a while since I have blogged... but I have a good excuse.

I am writing a book. It will be the second complete novel I have written.  I have written gaggles of short stories, a couple novellas and even had a short story published.

But novels are different chickens.  Novels are hard.  Novels are like climbing a Mt. Rainier of words hard.
 I never thought I could complete a publishable sized novel.  I have a tendency to finish things to the 60 percentile.  Then I find the next shiny object and work on that until 60% and the vicious cycle of incompletism circles around.

Then I found NaNoWriMo.  50,000 words in 30 days. That beautiful National Novel Writers Month has found the key, for me, to write and finish.

No editing allowed. NONE.

I sit down with my barely plotted out novel.  My quirky characters based off of family and write. Then I write some more, and more. My novel is chock full of fragments, run on sentences, weird emotional pre-coffee conflicts and is a rainbow of red and green squiggly lines that tell the world I can’t spell without electronic assistance. 

But chapter 5 is done.  Then 6.

My word count climbs exponentially with coffee consumption.  I start reaching those word count goals. I realize 1667 words a day is, well not that crazy. 

I start thinking in my characters points of view and laugh at odd moments of the day when a good scene blips in my brain. I run downstairs to the computer during dinner because the way my son ate his pot roast gave me inspiration on the dining room scene in chapter 7. 

I lay in bed with my husband and ask him what his opinion is on including additional external conflict.  He looks into my eyes, pats me on the head and sighs in resignation because it is only day 8.

I am a much better writer than I was a year ago when I finished my first novel.  I have learned about editing, the publishing business, and keys that work for me and my brain process.  I know for example that the genre this book is in will need to be 80,000-90,000 words to be publishable.  But I am not worried about that final word count right now.

I have learned that the first thing I need to do is get the story written out.  Then after I have let it sit for about a month, I can come back and flesh it out and world build.

I know that dialogue is my kryptonite.  I have to work extra hard to allow conversation to flow in my story.  But work I will, because I love to write.  And now I know I can finish.

To my family who love me and my writy self.  I love you and your patience. Hang on in there I only have plans to write for the rest of my life.