Lessons in Life, Death and WordCount

I learned some important things today.

1. If the cat is desperate to get out of the boat and onto the dock, there's a good chance there's a dead critter somewhere on said dock that he wants to get in his jaws. :P
2. I am capable of writing more than ten pages of fiction in one day.

No. These things aren't really related, but fortunately for me, life is slow enough right now, that these were the day's stand out issues.

That I can write lots of words per day really shouldn't come as a surprise. I've done it before. On rare occassion. And I didn't know why or how I'd managed to pour on the wordcount. Add into it that this has been a truly lackluster NaNoWriMo for me and you may begin to see why I'm suprised by 13 pages of new content in one afternoon. Is it any good? Oh, heck no. It's pure brain dump. Rough draft in its roughest form. But I can fix that.

I'd gotten up this morning with the determination that I was going to write and I was going to do my darnedest to write fast. There was a scene knocking around inside my head. Good. I at least had some notion of what I intended to get on virtual paper. But it didn't click for me until a fellow chapter member posted a link to a blog written by Rachel Aaron about how she'd significantly increased her productivity. It's a great post that does a terrific job of identifying and quantifying what made my rare high word count days work. As soon as I read the breakdown, the 'of course' bell went off in my head.

Now, I know what I need to make each day a high word count day. Time, a rough story map, and investment in a scene. Read Ms. Aaron's breakdown in the link above. It's detailed and well presented.

It is a bit more involved than keeping the cat away from the poor disemboweled duck we found on the dock this morning (otters? an eagle? messy and sad.) The cat glared at me in horrified astonishment when I muttered a brief blessing over the duck and nudged its corpse into the water.

I think I'd rather keep trying to increase my word counts than have to prevent the cat from dragging dead things back home.

Scared

This is Hatshepsut peeking out from behind the blue blanket. It was vet day for her and for Cuillean. Time for that once yearly event wherein I insist they allow a stranger to look at them, listen to their lungs and hearts, and maybe even draw a bit of blood. Big Drama, and, listening to their howls of protest, Big Trauma. When it was all over, though, not much had happened to either girl. I know there's no reason to fear a stethoscope - but try telling that to a feline yanked from her territory and transported to a strange location where some guy she doesn't know is pressing a cold bit of metal and plastic to her ribs. We'd stepped firmly outside the feline comfort zone. The worst part all morning was that the vet suggested both girls could use a diet.
Sigh. Couldn't we all?

It occurred to me as I chuckled at my girls' histronics that maybe I shouldn't laugh...it's fast coming up on NaNoWriMo - National November Write a Book in a Month kickoff. A number of my fellow writers are girding their pens and computers to take part this year. I did NaNoWriMo once. It scared me silly. See? Now you're laughing at me. What was so inherently frightening about writing 2k words a day? I'd never done it. It was outside my comfort zone and I seem to recall indulging in a fit of Big Drama of my own. Fast forward two years to being on deadline – something else I’d never done – ask my beloved husband about my sang-froid. I was calm, composed…you aren’t buying this are you? Okay. I was a total, psychotic nutcase. My family took to speaking slowly, in low, soothing tones whenever I looked up from the keyboard. Sort of like the tone of voice I’d used in the car to quiet wailing felines.

And yet, after a few years of acting school, and lots of years of writing stories, I’ve discovered that I feel most alive when I’m outside my comfort zone. I might be quaking in my tennis shoes. I may have adrenaline burning a hole in my chest from the inside out, but I’m awake and alive. I don’t advocate leaping out of your comfort zone and straight into danger. I don’t recommend becoming an adrenaline junkie. But inching your toe out of your safety zone once in a blue moon clears out the cobwebs. Try writing something that scares you (for me it was a torture scene). You don’t have to share it with anyone, but see if, once you’ve done it and the relief eases, whether you don’t feel just a little bit exhilarated.

The cats? They were exhilarated to be home and let out of their carriers so they could run off and commence snubbing me for betraying their trust.