End of Day 29: 43,538 (111)
Apr. 12th, 2007 01:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lobelia321Yesterday was Day 29. We got back midnight last night. Mannheim was warm, almost hot; Heidelberg was wonderful -- I realised (remembered?) that I really love Heidelberg.
Despite obstacles (a. no computer, b. got a terrible cold and didn't write for 2 1/2 days, c. family demanding 85 per cent of my attention for 85 per cent of the time, d. terrible dispiritedness at various points due to hopeless badness of plot and prose, e. gradual loss of ability to play with the English language as my native tongue German took over), I soldiered on with my novel and I am now at 43,538 words.
This is an estimate as long-hand has no in-built word count function. I spent many minutes tallying pages and averaging out words-per-line of my spiral-bound stenographer's notepad. What amazes and impresses me most is that I am still doing it, that I kept going and am only 7,500 words away from the finish line! I've decided that I will not transfer all my long-hand to type within the month but do that after the deadline. I've also decided to make this a 31-day month which gives me today (Day 30) and tomorrow to resolve 19 (nineteen) plot lines. Hah! A cinch!
There have been two advantages to writing a novel in long-hand:
a. Nobody can look over my shoulder to read it as my scrawl is barely legible to me myself. I can write complete gibberish or pornograpy in blissful anonymity, and not even t'sons are any the wiser.
b. Long-hand is the most portable writing activity there is. At one point, I was even writing walking down the pedestrian zone in Heidelberg. Write-walk, as it were. It can be done on the spur of the moment, any time, anywhere. I could become almost addicted to it. It is wonderfully liberating.
Long-hand is what saved my novel throughout a ten-day family holiday. I scribbled at the breakfast table, I scribbled in bed, I scribbled on the toilet, I scribbled on trains, buses and undergrounds and in countless wonderful German cafés to the accompaniment of numerous wonderful German Käsekuchen (cheese cakes). I stuffed the pad into my coat pocket and the combined weight of pad and pen had exactly zero negative effect on my bad back.
Now I have a hairdressing appointment and one son is off to the cinema and t'other to a friend's barbecue so I shall hie myself off to a coffee shop with both my pad'n'pencil and my laptop and see which one grabs my fancy for the final run. Chris Baty of NaNoWriMo founding fame does actually encourage one to write the last lap of the novel 'unplugged'. *g*
I'm happy to be back, everyone!
Despite obstacles (a. no computer, b. got a terrible cold and didn't write for 2 1/2 days, c. family demanding 85 per cent of my attention for 85 per cent of the time, d. terrible dispiritedness at various points due to hopeless badness of plot and prose, e. gradual loss of ability to play with the English language as my native tongue German took over), I soldiered on with my novel and I am now at 43,538 words.
This is an estimate as long-hand has no in-built word count function. I spent many minutes tallying pages and averaging out words-per-line of my spiral-bound stenographer's notepad. What amazes and impresses me most is that I am still doing it, that I kept going and am only 7,500 words away from the finish line! I've decided that I will not transfer all my long-hand to type within the month but do that after the deadline. I've also decided to make this a 31-day month which gives me today (Day 30) and tomorrow to resolve 19 (nineteen) plot lines. Hah! A cinch!
There have been two advantages to writing a novel in long-hand:
a. Nobody can look over my shoulder to read it as my scrawl is barely legible to me myself. I can write complete gibberish or pornograpy in blissful anonymity, and not even t'sons are any the wiser.
b. Long-hand is the most portable writing activity there is. At one point, I was even writing walking down the pedestrian zone in Heidelberg. Write-walk, as it were. It can be done on the spur of the moment, any time, anywhere. I could become almost addicted to it. It is wonderfully liberating.
Long-hand is what saved my novel throughout a ten-day family holiday. I scribbled at the breakfast table, I scribbled in bed, I scribbled on the toilet, I scribbled on trains, buses and undergrounds and in countless wonderful German cafés to the accompaniment of numerous wonderful German Käsekuchen (cheese cakes). I stuffed the pad into my coat pocket and the combined weight of pad and pen had exactly zero negative effect on my bad back.
Now I have a hairdressing appointment and one son is off to the cinema and t'other to a friend's barbecue so I shall hie myself off to a coffee shop with both my pad'n'pencil and my laptop and see which one grabs my fancy for the final run. Chris Baty of NaNoWriMo founding fame does actually encourage one to write the last lap of the novel 'unplugged'. *g*
I'm happy to be back, everyone!
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-12 04:58 pm (UTC)Heidelberg is beautiful, but it gets old through the years. *grin* Especially the dialect is awful. I started liking it, though. Wem gheersch'n Du? :)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-12 07:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-12 08:21 pm (UTC)Also, did t'husband tell you that we met in the Friedrichstraße. How weird is that? Tehee!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-12 10:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-13 07:52 am (UTC)Still impressed with the novel.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-13 03:46 am (UTC)