First NaNoWriMo week has passed and again I learned (ok I’ve already known that before but) that writing is fun, work and pain altogether. I have so many bookmarks in my head which say what I have to work over in december, I really cannot think about a single one in november and I shouldn’t. Actually the first week worked out quite well. Sometimes it was hard to sit down and write, but I did it. Even after some drinks after work. I know there is this cliché about writers love to drink and write better when they do? I personally don’t. I cannot focus anymore after I had some beer, wine and whiskey (I souldn’t mix that und I clearly shouldn’t drink on mondays). I can still hit the buttons, but that alone doesn’t tell a story, no.

The thought that you should just write during november no matter what and if it is good or not is not always helpfull. Clearly you don’t want to delete the hole book in december, don’t you? So do not write when your drunk unless you are really one of those cliché writers who get at her best when fully drunk. But you should go out, meet friends and then come back to your computer and write (without drinking before). It helps to get your mind off, when you are stuck at some point. You should also sleep and you should never forget, that you always work on your novel and that you always can. Even when your asleep. So don’t punish yourself when you are not writing all the time. But think about your novel on every minute you can. Because you can plan on your novel under the shower or while jogging or cooking or doing something mechanical when your mind isn’t used (ok, if you are a quantum mechanic it might be hard, but even they cook and take a shower sometimes!). You can work so much more on your novel than just the moments you are actually writing!

I just had the big problem this week, that I had to do some planning before I could go on writing and didn’t have the time to do it. So I had to write some scenes I knew they would come before I really had the time to plan on the weekend. I rearranged some scenes and so on, but I didn’t really filled up the holes like I thought I would. My plan actually was that after the weekend I would excactly know what is missing so I could just sit down and write it all down until end of november. But that’s just not how I’m ticking or working or writing. I’m not much of a planner. The story reveals itself while I’m writing. And that’s what this first week teached me (actually again I already knew that).

I wrote a scene and had no idea how to end it. My hero printed out some pages and I had no idea what should be written on them. Then all of a sudden in the bathroom (and not before my computer while writing) I knew excaclty that I don’t have to tell now what is written on those pages and that I already know what is written on them. Because I had a scene later where my hero actually already has those pages. The fact of the place where my hero printed out his pages leads to more suspicions I didn’t think of before!

So after this successfull first week and a good time management with having a drink (or two or even more) on monday, visiting a poetry slam on tuesday (very inspiring, do that if there is one near you this month!), a market on thursday, went shopping on friday, visiting another friend on saturday and even learned chinese and went jogging today, beside all that I wrote every day. And even I was suprised how many words I can type in my 10 minutes train ride to work.

With these (again not counting words) I head up for the second week and go on writing, all excited about the story to reveal itself to me.