Ack

The first day of NaNo didn't go well for me. I stayed up that first night past midnight & wrote 718 words, thinking that was a decent start and I'd write 1000 more words later in the day. Only it never happened. I never got back to it, and still haven't, and am kind of paralyzed with fear about it. Which is ridiculous! I mean, who really cares how great it is? The problem is that I really care about this story & don't want to screw it up, but I'm trying to remind myself it's a first draft. It may end up just being the basis for an outline of the story, for the second draft, and none of what I write has to stay in the final version, but I'm so bad at large-scale revisions, that really scares me! But I know if I don't push through and write some more soon, this whole thing may be a bust. And meanwhile, it's freaking me out to read how well other people are doing! Some people in my writing groups have written 3,000 or even 6,000 words already.

For that matter, I checked my 2002 NaNo blog & freaked myself out. At around this time on Nov. 2 that year, I already had over 6,000 words. Two hours later, I had 7,248, and by 4:20 in the afternoon, I was up to 10,446 words!!! On the second day of NaNo! This time, I'm not even sure I'll write one more word by 4:20 pm today. Sigh.

Also, I know someone who reads submissions for a small children's press, and she blogged today that she wished people would write more light, fun novels, instead of depressing ones. Note that I just changed from my silly "I want a slushie and maybe a boyfriend while I'm at it" idea to my "suicide and broken friendships" idea. Err...huh. And it is hard to write this, knowing that I don't even have a happy ending in mind for it. So I have to think a little more about what to write before I plunge back into it!