Back when I finished my last NaNoWriMo, I said that I’d be starting a new writing project within a couple of weeks. Well, here we are. It’s more than a couple of weeks later–a bit short of two months actually. Unfortunately, I haven’t really written much. There was a short story and a few other blog posts and that’s about it. But that’s not what I want to do. I want to write.
So starting at the beginning of March (has it really been five days already?) I started another NaNoWriMo, just for me. There’s no tracker on the NaNoWriMo website, but I really didn’t use that much anyways. The goal is the same: 50,000 words in 31 days. 1,667 words per day. The only catch this time around? I’m going to try to write the entire thing the old fashioned way–by hand. ((In case you were wondering, I’m not actually going to count out the full word count by hand. That would be crazy. 😄 Instead, I counted up the first few pages and averaged them to get an estimate. Each page is roughly 250 words, so if I write 6-7 pages per day, I should be good.))
Yeah. I’m probably crazy. But people did it for centuries before the invention of typewriters. How hard can it be? 😄
Not too bad actually. Luckily, when we learned cursive back in grade school, it actually took. I’ve been told that actually have pretty good handwriting (for a guy), although the above is definitely not the best example. The faster I write, the harder it is to read and the more interested I am in a topic, the faster I write. If you can actually follow the story above, color me impressed. I can make everything out, but that’s mostly because I have years of experience (and I still remember more or less what I wrote in the first place).
So where does that leave posting it online? Well, I have a few options:
I could upload the raw images. I doubt anyone would be able to read them in their entirety, although it would be interesting to see people try.
I could transcribe each chapter to the computer. Eventually I’m going to want to do this anyways, but it takes a fair bit of time ((And I’m not particularly rich in that regard at the moment…)). I could probably do biweekly updates like I did with A Sea of Stars, keeping within a few days of my actual progress.
I could just post the whole thing when I’m done with it.
I could not post it. I still haven’t posted my 2011 NaNoWriMo ((Mostly because it’s not actually finished)) nor have I posted the other completed first draft ((I’m planning an eventual second major rewrite on that one)). But I do like posting things; I like the feedback.
Honestly, I’m not sure which option I should go with. If anyone has a particular preference, feel free to let me know either in the comments below or by email.
On a related note, even if I decide not to post it here until I’m done, I’ve come across an idea on one of the writing podcasts I listen to: beta readers. Basically, a private group of people that read what I’m writing more or less as I write it and give me some feedback on how the story is progressing. It’s a bit more controlled than just posting things on my blog, but that also helps if I ever try to get published. I’m not sure if I really want to go this way, but I’m considering it. If you’d like to be a beta reader (all I’ll ask of you is feedback), let me know!