Nano progress — 1

 November 4, 2020

 

So, I began nano without really knowing too much about my story or having a plan. I saw on some writing groups I am in, how writers plan for nano. They have their characters fleshed out and have an outline of what they will write daily. Chapter plans etc. all ready. I had none. Not even a beginning, a story arc, POV — I only knew the story would feature these two women. I also knew I couldn’t write on weekends so would have to write 2,500 words a day during the week to finish the 50,000 words. 

 

I started a new word file on Monday morning and named it unnamed. I took a leap of faith and began typing. I wrote 700 words that must have come from somewhere in the unconscious where this story had been brewing. The POV was first person. Day 1, day 2 and day 3 are now done. I have 7,500 words. I have a vague story arc and know vaguely the emotions that will govern certain parts of the story. The first 700 words showed that the narrator has a difficult decision to make but I don’t yet know what she will do. 

 

It is magical though how more characters emerged that I hadn’t thought about at all. School friends, with entangled relationships that go through closeness and distance. I guess besides the main themes of money and power, I am writing about friendship.

 

Sometimes I feel despite having lived 60 years on this earth I don’t really know much about friendships. Where do we learn about them? In school, through books we read, or films we see, or living through authentic friendships or unpleasant ones too? I don’t know why but there are still so many questions about what makes a friendship good or bad or a friendship at all. Does one have rules about how to negotiate friendships or does one use their instincts and their pulls towards people? How does one negotiate those edges of getting closer, revealing more, trusting? How does one talk about those times when one feels let down, betrayed, forgotten? I tend to plunge in and then use my instincts. I try to express the range of feelings I have about the friendship in a meta way, but I have been wrong at times about whom to trust and not been able to express some feelings at times when I fear that the friendship, or perhaps the person, is not strong enough to take it. 

 

I am also laughing at myself right now, that once I finished my 2500 words for the day, to take a break from the writing, I decided to write a blog post. Really funny, isn’t it? I used to watch these films about students at Dance Academies. I guess I love watching movement and rhythm. I always wondered why their way of relaxing after a grueling day of dance was going to a bar and dancing some more or taking a class of a more contemporary or ‘looser’ form of dancing. Now I am doing something similar. 

 

But I will read a bit now — a war novel that I am halfway through — and then take myself to the gym. The US election coverage is open on one of my tabs. I want to write a short note weekly about my progress at nano. I don’t know if I will be able to keep up this word flow or I will finish the month. But right now it feels like grace acting in my life that I have this opportunity to just write for a month. Lucky I do feel.