Leveling up

I’m an eight-for-eight Nanowrimo winner. About every other year I go in with no idea, no inspiration, no outline. This was one of those years. All I had was a mildly unpleasant character and the LKFWriters’ Plot Twist Box of DOOOOOOOOOM! [0] Any time I got stuck or bored I’d draw another card.

Every day I’d write my 1700 words and then not think about it for another 22.5 hours.

I “won” on Saturday the 29th, killed off my character [1], validated my word count and stuck my notebook in a box, never again to see the light of day.

Sunday, with time and little to do [2], I opened my calendar of writing prompts and 15 minutes later I had written a new story. It was short, less than 500 words, and unpolished, but it had all its fingers and toes. Beginning, middle, end, protagonist, setting, conflict, resolution.

Huh. That’s never happened before [3].

See, I’m good at thinking up characters and situations [4], but plots and structure are always hard. I can never think of an interesting antagonist, conflict, or response. But there it was, on the page, easy peasy.

Yesterday I did it again. I’ll try again tonight. I wonder how long I can maintain the streak?

This year’s Nanowrimo wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t all that fun, and it wasn’t exactly a swirling maelstrom of creative ecstasy and agony, but I’m pretty sure I leveled up my game.

Aspen Junge