We inadvertently took this weekend off. All manner of things had piled up over the past few months, and we tackled some long overdue projects. Yes, finally, we got a haircut. Also, we made a huge mess in the kitchen right after the husband scrubbed the whole room to a suspicious gleam. Life was good. Now it’s Monday, and we’re recalling why this particular day is greeted with such dread: the human mind, while amazingly resilient, adopts to “I’ll never have to work again” in just one day. Undoing the damage takes approximately five.
We’re entering Week Three of the NaNo project, and we’re proud to say we remain on track. Maybe we’re a bit more competitive than we believed, or maybe we really, really needed to clear some of the voices in our head. Given our success (yes, we’re bragging, but remain humble as ever), we were shocked to learn this:
[Chris] Baty says only about 17 percent of those who register for his experiment write 50,000 words. They send their finished works in via the Web site, and a computer program verifies their word count and declares them winners. It’s all done on the honor system, and Baty says that to pad novels toward their 50,000-word goal, some WriMos cut contractions, replacing “don’t” with “do not,” and he himself has made characters hard of hearing so that dialogue would need to be repeated. Since there’s no prize at the end, aside from getting one’s name on the Web site, he figures it doesn’t much matter if they cheat. The main point is they’re writing.
- Speed Writing: With One Month to Pen a Novel, a Faster Piece Is Better Than a Masterpiece
