I almost didn’t write again tonight. I spent my evening doing laundry and packing and a variety of other things before I head off on a very quick trip to the Bay area tomorrow. By the time the kids were in bed and asleep I’d all but given up on writing for the evening. After all, I’d have nearly six hours on a plane tomorrow to play catch-up. I even started watching a movie, but after about 30 minutes or so, I shut off the movie and decided to give the writing a go.
I opened my novella, added a new scene file, and was poised to start typing the first words of the new scene–when something strange happened. Instead of typing what should have been the first words of the new scene, my fingers typed out the title of a story. They put it neatly between quotation marks, and then they continued. They typed out a “1.” followed by a two word scene. I’ll tell you the words of that opening scene. They were: “We jumped.”
My fingers continued in this manner for the next–what? Hour? Hour and a half? I’m not certain. They typed out a total of 14 scenes before the story was finished. Those fourteen scenes add up to a hair over 1,700 words.
So I didn’t do my NaNoWriMo writing tonight, as planned, but I did write a new story, which is tentatively called, “And We Jumped Into a Sea of Stars.” The story is now in desperate need of second draft, but I am too tired to worry about that tonight. After all, I’ve got a five-plus-hour plane ride tomorrow.
At the present moment, therefore, on Day 7 of NaNoWriMo, I’m stuck at 13,005 words for the second day in a row, despite writing 1,700 words today. Those 1,700 words would jump my NaNo story to nearly 15,000 words, but that wouldn’t be honest. They are not part of that story. They are part of another story. One that I think is pretty good, for a first draft.
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