By L. V. Gaudet
Written February 29, 2012
It’s only one more sleep to March, and kind of a cheat day since today isn’t really supposed to happen, at least not 4 out of 5 years it isn’t.
It’s February 29th and leap day!
It’s also been three months since the insanity of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). For those who don’t know, this is a month of madness. 30 days of writing mayhem, where writers such as myself, who are suffering from bouts of derangement try to write an entire 50,000 word novel from start to finish in only 30 days.
This year I decided to make March Special.
I am declaring March to be a new month of madness. I’ll lovingly call it “I’m Going to Finish this Damned WIP if it Bloody Well Kills Me!” month, or IGFDWBWKM month. Okay, so the anagram needs work; a lot of work. So to make it easier I’ll just refer to it as March Madness.
The idea is to take that energy you poured into November’s NaNo challenge, but with what should be a much less daunting (and less insane) task. Take that one WIP that is driving you really nuts, nagging at you, pecking at you, and just plain annoying the hell out of you because you just want to finish it already. And, finish it. Just like that. You even get an extra day because March has 31 days in it.
Finish outlining ahead if possible (I’ve been hashing out the end of the outline for mine for the last couple of weeks).
There is no word count goal because it doesn’t matter how far along you are, and every story will end up being exactly the length it needs to be.
There is only one goal – finishing that damned WIP if it bloody well kills you. You win if you can comfortably say you finished that damned WIP without your inner guilt demons laughing at you for lying. The prize is that feel good feeling of finally getting that thing off your back and being able to say, “Hey, I finally finished the bloody thing!”
With me?
Tomorrow is day one. Tomorrow I start typing and I’m Going to Finish this Damned WIP if it Bloody Well Kills Me!
It’s madness, yes, but it is March.
I may even tease with a few excerpts of this nasty novel of kidnapping, murder, and assorted mayhem.
3 comments:
Did you know that some millennial years don't have leap days? Oddly enough, 2000 did, but 1900 didn't. Weird.
Good luck - I hope you've accomplished all you writing goals and that it hasn't killed you! Sounds like a really interesting WIP.
You're welcome to be my guest blogger on Pagan Spirits and share and excerpt there on a future WIP Wednesday.
Thanks Erin!
Well, March has come and gone. And so has April and more than half of May.
Life has kept me mostly in the semi-darkness of a basement dwelling cubicle, suffering the gluttonous self-recriminations for all the things I'm failing at in looking after the house and kids, and trying to manage as much of my lunch breaks into brief writing jags.
It didn't kill me, and it's well past late, but I finished the bloody wip - today!
Now on to the editing and chopping.
I'd have a glass of wine and celebrate, if I had any.
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