A writer writes, so I feel with all my work on Stonehenge Casting and Stonehenge XIV this year, I have been neglecting my overall writing. There have been scripts I’ve been meaning to get to and the period after Stonehenge XIV seemed like a good time to dive into them. I also wanted to be writing every day, something that I haven’t managed for most of this year.
Enter NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month in its less-cute, more informative name. I’ve wanted to participate in this long-running competition for some time and I’ve held off because of young kids.
My original thought was to go for 200 pages of scripts. That number of pages equates to 50,000 words if one were to go with the standard 250 words per page — and yes, I know that a script page is usually not 250 words, but because script pages can be so varied in terms of wordcount per page, this seemed like a good compromise. However, having looked at the rules surrounding the now defunct Script Frenzy competition (run by the same folks who do NaNoWriMo), I’m thinking their goal of 100 pages is more reasonable. 100 pages is 1.34 Rogue Tyger scripts or possibly two Pilgrimage Galactic scripts. 100 pages is also a little more than 3 pages a day — something I might be able to realistically average over the course of the month.
This makes all the more sense because the kids are still young, so Dad can’t disappear for hours on end, especially if he wants Mom to be in good spirits.
So, 100 pages it is. Other than that, I’m going to try and follow all the rules as described at the NaNoWriMo site. I’m going to work on them being all new pages, there’s time to re-write and edit later. Since I know that 100 pages is more than any of the intended scripts, I’m giving myself permission to start and stop on several different scripts. However, my goal is to have a completed draft of at least one script.
This approach doesn’t really mesh with National Novel Writing Month per se. Because of this, I’m holding off on formally registering for NaNoWriMo this year or being involved in local activities. I consider this a test run, but one that I hope gets me into a positive creative space as the year comes to a close. By November 30th, I’m hoping I have slipped back into writing every day and am enjoying the creative energy that provides.
I’ll be posting my progress and hope some fellow scribes will be joining me in the using this deadline to get to writing!