Hitting what I suspect is the most challenging part of writing a NaNoWriMo novel. It's not about whether or not the finished product will be any good, or if I'm going to run out of ideas and narrative steam (although all those things are a constant concern). It's simply that, after several days in which I've only produced a couple of thousand words - I'm now about 9,000 words behind schedule - that nobody cares about this book. Nobody really gives a damn if I don't finish it. This in itself is not a fear or a concern. It's actually a highly attractive, alluring siren. I could, simply, stop writing the book. No great loss. The stuff that I've written so far is OK - not brilliant, OK - and there's the beginning of some kind of narrative skeleton there. Despite it being in a style that I've never written in before (and, indeed, rarely read) I have a suspicion that there's not an original thought in its head.
But, it's somewhat fun, and I'm beginning to like the main characters, even if I still can't quite work out their actions (the central villian's motives might be a little too far fetched, I haven't decided yet). The whole plot is still overwhelming me, and I haven't been able to get my head around it all.
Pretty much every writing manual you'll ever read will have a riff on the line 'the only way to write is to keep writing'. It gets repeated so often, it's like a mantra, and therefore become part of the background, like wallpaper. You forget what it actually means. Certainly, during this project, I've been re-discovering exactly what it means: if at all possible, don't stop writing. Whenever I've been away from the laptop, the book has felt too much like a chore, too much like hard work. The characters aren't working, and I have no idea what to do next.
However, when I force myself to fire up the laptop, I find myself presented with a narrative problem that I simply have to write my way out of. No planning, no character profiles - just reaction, and action. The rules of NaNoWriMo itself dictate that - just write, no matter what. Those rules, on a bad day, become not a shackle, but a release: for instance, the opening scene of my book ('Set Up, Punch', just in case you haven't been paying attention) has never really worked all that well for me. It sets up three of the main characters well enough, and it manages to smuggle a digestible amount of exposition in a engaging enough fashion, but nothing actually seemed to be ... happening. It was almost literally people standing still, talking. Added to this, I still haven't really decided if my main character is thrown into events blindly, if she's in control of events from the top of the story, or even, somehow, a combination of both (there are advantages and disadvantages in all three).
However, as a writer - and as a actor, and a director, come to that - I've become a passionate believer that if something in your narrative simply isn't working, if it's causing you a problem, then it's very likely that you've already written the solution to it. There are probably more intelligent and experienced writers out there who can explain the dynamics, logic, or just plain alchemy of it all, but I've long ago decided to simply surrender to it, and trust that things will work themselves out. It has, so far, without exception, always worked. I'm fully aware that by typing the words 'it has always worked' mean that, if it is alchemy, I've just cursed myself to never being able to solve a narrative problem ever again.
It's not alchemy, of course, even though it feels that way. I still have to work hard at solving the problem, even if I'm not always certain what work it is that I have to do to unlock the doors. Occasionally, I will have to write out a full character profile, but just as often, I find myself simply transcribing what I've already written by hand, altering a word or paragraph her or there, switching around the order of scenes, until something clicks. Artistically, it's no more profound than wriggling the top of your tongue at a wobbly tooth until it finally drops out. and often, just as satisfying.
Curiously, I'm still not all that worried about falling behind on the word count, even though the NaNoWriMo website is currently warning me that at my current rate, I'll be finishing seven days late. But I'm fully aware that the main reason I'm not concerned about being behind is the dangerous one - the one I mentioned at the top of this blog. Nobody cares. Nobody's waiting. I just have to remind myself that this is the literal cut off point, the fork in the road. Leave it now, and I'll have 100 pages or so of somewhat incoherent plotting. But if I can come up with just 25,000 words in the next (gulp) ten days .. Well, then. That has the potential to be a real, actual book.
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