NaNoWriMo Away!

I've been aware of National Novel Writing Month for a couple of years now.  I'll admit that the first time I saw a Twitter friend mention it, I thought the idea was a little bit crazy.  This year, however, I decided to dive in.  I tossed the idea around for a few days as I saw other people on Twitter talking about making their preparations and last night, two hours before it kicked off, I decided to register and make a go of it.  I figured that if I was ever going to do something like this, now would be the time.  I'm absurdly underemployed and almost completely lack what most twenty-somethings would describe as a social life.  Now, I know that you're thinking, "But Kris, shouldn't you be writing your novel instead of writing about writing your novel?"  And the answer to that question would be a resounding yes.  However, anyone who would ask me that clearly lacks appreciation for my extraordinary powers of procrastination.  It's all a part of the creative process.

I started writing at midnight and made it through 858 words before I decided to call it quits for the night at 1:30 am.  I can always tell when I'm too tired to continue writing because my phonics start to get wonky as I type.  It's not pretty; as a grammar elitist, it's a point of pride that I get some sleep and come back to the computer when I'm rested enough to continue properly.

I'll be honest: I kind of hate what I have written so far.  I've always been a good writer, but I've almost exclusively written academic papers.  Creative storytelling is something that's more or less new to me.  I think it'll get better after I power through this opening chapter and move on to the characters that I really like.  I have a feeling that it's just a matter of finding my own writing voice and figuring how to put the images in my head down onto paper.  It's definitely a different process than pounding out a thesis statement and some analytic paragraphs.  I need to convince myself to write the novel my own way, not try to make it perfect or fit into some preconceived notion of what it should look like.