Alas, I broke the streak of posting on consecutive Thursdays. But a day late on a post talking about putting things off? It’s almost as if I planned it. (I didn’t.)
For those who only get news on my progress for 12 Months, 12 Genres 2: Electric Novel-oo through this blog, you’ll be please to know that the January novel (erotica) reached it’s zenith and was able to cuddle up to completion before the month was out. But it wasn’t easy for several reasons.
The biggest one, as I’ve talked about, was the start of the actual erotic parts, i.e. the sex. Maybe it had to do with some of my own hang-ups, worry over how well I could describe it all, or something else on my end. Or maybe the fact that the female of the couple was a character I had started writing as 14 (and when I wrote past scenes, got as young as 10), even if she was “now” 20. (I wrote the couple starting to date and getting married as the majority of last year’s Nano novel, and she started off as 17 at the beginning of events, though she didn’t get together with the guy until after she had turned 18, even if he was 22.) I had a hard time, as I so eloquently put it during my writing group meeting this week, “popping her cherry” as it were.
But as last week’s post proudly announced, Katie’s not a virgin anymore. In fact, she’s very much not so. Once I got over the hump of it (yes, I know I made that joke in the last post, too), it became a lot easier to write more scenes that hopefully fit the erotic mold. Yet I’d like to point out: although there were bunches and bunches of interlocking parts, it didn’t get graphic. If that makes it better? I don’t know. Other than parts that I’ll eventually show my critique group, I don’t know if I’ll ever show this to anyone. (It doesn’t help that this is part of a larger story with these characters, so to get at least some aspects of it, you’d have to read the 30+ stories that come before it. Why are there so many? Because last year was my 18th Nano, I’ve written stories in this series almost every year, and often I’ve been an overachiever, so I’ve written more than 1 in several of those years, too.)
The weekend did nearly break me, however. I wasn’t able to muster the productivity really until Sunday. I had gotten to 20K total by the end of Saturday, which wasn’t even 2K for the whole day. It became a battle to keep myself from falling down rabbit holes of distraction. And while I got to 26K by the end of Sunday (I had been hoping to do 10K a day for the last 3 days to spread it out), I smacked into a distraction in the form of my son wanting to watch Prisoner of Azkaban and finding it difficult to not watch along.
That left me hoping for 12K a day for the last 2 days, which sounds like a lot, because it is. I managed to get 10K that day. I was going to push to get the last 2K for the day shortly after midnight, but I realized I’d be more productive on the last day if I slept instead. I guess that proved correct, because by 11:30 on Tuesday night (the 31st), I pulled it off.
I’ve since taken a couple of days to rest, though I’m not going to slack too much. I’ve still written every day, if only to put down the title on Wednesday, and the first chapter header for yesterday. We’re on Day 3 of the romance month (which will not get graphic, either, or at least too much), and I plan to use the weekend to get more or less on track. I want to be able to enjoy things other than writing, particularly in the last few days of the month (of which I have a couple/few less than all the others this year). Last time I did this I wrote way too much on the last day of the month in several of the months, and I started with the wrong precedent this year.
I’m stubborn, and I know I can succeed, but I also know my endings tend to stink if I rush them, no matter how well they’re planned out. I think this month has the potential to be one of the best things I’ve ever written. That’s how I envision it. Whether that shows up on the page is to be seen. And it’ll be a first draft anyway, so it’s going to be crap to start off. That’s just how it is.
Anyway, we’re one down, eleven to go, and a year of writing adventure like no other (except for the last time I did this 10 years ago).