Friday, November 04, 2005

Dying is easy, writing is hard

NaNoWriMo

It’s day four of the novel writing, and I have two days worth in the can.  Unlike the madly prolific EDog (7500 words) I am having trouble achieving, let alone maintaining, the required clip of 1667 words a day.  Still, this is the most fiction I have ever written in such a small period of time.  I’ve been significantly more productive many times on the non-fiction side, and that leaves me some small hope that I can eventually pick up the pace.

Funny thing, though, writing non fiction is for me easy.  You all may argue amongst yourselves about the quality of that writing, but at least the production of it is no real burden for me.  It generally flows out my brain, through my fingers and onto the screen without skull sweat, headaches or worry.  Fiction, on the other hand, hurts my brain.  I’m not sure about the deep psychological reasons for it - but some part of me seems to think that fiction is vastly more important than non fiction.  There is a pressure in me to make sure that it is really good before writing it, let alone letting others see it.  I don’t feel that at all with the non-fiction.  Maybe because I always wanted to be an author of sf novels, I can’t afford to fail.  I didn’t grow up wanting to be an essayist or blogger and perhaps that is why it feels easier.  It’s difficult, too, to post these things.  I cringe before clicking the submit button.  Even telling you that I cringe before clicking the button is easier than letting you see the fiction.  Let us hope that this all builds character.

Aside from the neurosis and paranoia, I am also thinking harder on all of this than even the more complicated posts, or on term papers back in school.  This is a good thing, I believe, but it is tiring.  Writing five hundred words of fiction is more tiring than a day’s worth of heavy blogging, even if it only takes an hour.  Trying to keep in my head the evolving characters and plot is not so hard, but applying that knowledge consistently is.  I’ve wasted a fair chunk of time writing background material, even though I’d promised myself not to.  But it is so much easier - it’s more like nonfiction. 

And of course, it’s easier to write this post than to write the next chapter.  If I can avoid Civ IV tonight, hopefully I can get a couple more in the bag.


Posted by Buckethead on 11/04/05 at 07:45 PM
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