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Updates and Apologies

I felt like such a slacker when I realized I'd only posted once to the blog last week. NaNo has kept me busy. Although I'm a little bit behind where I would like to be, I did manage to pass 10,000 words over the weekend. And I must say I'm having fun not editing. I never thought I would utter those words, but I read a terrific article by Stephen King that really hit home with me. One of his suggestions on writing successfully was this:
Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule. You think you might have misspelled a word? O.K., so here is your choice: either look it up in the dictionary, thereby making sure you have it right - and breaking your train of thought and the writer's trance in the bargain - or just spell it phonetically and correct it later. Why not? Did you think it was going to go somewhere? And if you need to know the largest city in Brazil and you find you don't have it in your head, why not write in Miami, or Cleveland? You can check it ... but later. When you sit down to write, write. Don't do anything else except go to the bathroom, and only do that if it absolutely cannot be put off.
I've followed his advice while writing this week and let me tell you it's fantastic and freeing and lots of other wonderful adjectives that I will not use a thesaurus to look up right now.  You can read the entire article here, and I encourage you to do so.

I also finished reading Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, and all I can say is WOW. Please read this book if you haven't already and tell everyone you know to read it also.

I passed it along to my teenage son. It is so powerfully written and Ms. Anderson really nailed the teen voice.

My fantabulous follower giveaway will be revealed this week so stay tuned for that, and for my fellow NaNoers, in the words of  Commander Peter Quincy Taggart, "Never give up, never surrender!"

11 comments:

Marieke said...

That is so true :)

And I love Speak. It's an absolutely amazing book! :)

Carolyn V. said...

Oh man! I love the Commander Taggart quote! So true.

I still want to get that book! It's on my tbr list. =)

PT Dilloway said...

Yeah that's pretty much what I do with a first draft. Then I go back later to fact check and correct typos and so forth

Golden Eagle said...

I should pay more attention to that kind of advice--if something's wrong, I usually search fruitlessly for it, lose my train of thought, and end up even further stuck.

I have to read Speak one of these days! Glad you liked it.

Anonymous said...

I have Speak, I just need to find time to read it.

Julie Hedlund said...

I read Speak this summer and was blown away. Can't believe I hadn't read it before...

And King, as always, is always right. :-)

Rachael Harrie said...

10,000 words, go you good thing!

Rach

Amie Kaufman said...

So true, such great advice. If there's something I don't know or need to insert later, I usually switch to all caps, so I can't miss it when I come back. For example: HERE SHE EATS WHATEVER FRUIT IS SEASONAL AT THIS TIME OF YEAR. Keeps me on track instead of offering me a way to jump off onto some other task!

Hart Johnson said...

I am definitely a convert to the 'wait to the end' to fix it--I think the BIGGEST benefit is if you fix right away, you fix it with knowledge of where you are. If you fix it at the END, you fix it with knowledge of where the whole story goes. Something as basic as a word choice can be affected by an ending... there are a thousand metaphors for anger or sadness... why not choose the one that subtly forshadows the final climax--but you don't KNOW until you know... your editing power when the thing is DONE is so much BIGGER.

Lisa Potts said...

Thanks for all of the comments. I've missed talking to all of you!

I promise to get to your blogs ASAP. I obviously don't have the best time management skills, but I'm working on improving them!

Mary Mary said...

Great advice on staying away from editing until you're finished with a first draft. I agree, but I tend to parcel my editing out so that I'm not stuck with a giant, lumpy mess in the end. I'll write about fifty pages and then briefly run through that before moving on. Usually fact checking and making sure there's a good flow (plus I have to refresh my memory with where I last left off!)

Good luck with NaNo!

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