More on Art Not Being Easy

My post last night on the sluggish progress of The Year of Living Magically prompted a few questions that I thought I'd tackle in a separate post.

Before I get to those, thanks to everybody for the support and encouragement. That's a big part of the NaNoWriMo community, but it means a lot to get some support from the "outside" world as well. For those of you desperate enough for entertainment, I've put up an excerpt from what I've done so far on my NaNoWriMo profile.* Enjoy.

As for those questions, Shark Girl asks:

I'm wondering if the site teaches you how to write, or it just a place to track your writing?

I noticed you said your developing your characters, that's why I was wondering. Did you already know how to do that, or are there lessons in the site?

NaNoWriMo isn't really about teaching, it's about motivating. Don't get me wrong - there's a lot of useful "how to" information available to people (as does the Absolute Write forum in my blogroll). But the main thrust of the program is to set a schedule for writing and provide motivation for sticking to it. In fact, part of the prelim Emails from the NaNo folks is that the most important thing to writing a novel (or anything else) it to actually do it. Get it down on paper and then worry about getting it "right" later. In other words, it's a good swift kick in the virtual ass.

As for character development, I'm sure there's some stuff on the site about that, but the ones inhabiting my story so far have been made up on the fly. I've previously tried to do in depth sketches for characters, but that story never really got off the ground (or on track, to be precise). It's fun to work things out on the fly!

Then Muze asked:

If you don't get this project completed what do you do? Can you use it toward a future project?

Whether I hit the 50k target by the end of November, I plan to complete this story, however long it might take. The text belongs only to me, not the NaNo folks, so I can do anything I want with it when I'm done.

As for the recorder - I've thought about that, but I don't do dictation very well. Instead, I've got small mounds of index cards in various strategic locations I can use to jot down ideas at a moment's notice.

Thanks again, everybody!

* So that makes a little bit of sense - my main character, Danforth, has been dragged by his friend Glenn to a used book sale. Glenn plans to scoop up books to resell on eBay, which is why Danforth is looking through the books in the first place.