My goodness, all these years using word processing software and I’ve rarely used the “word count” tool.
Until yesterday and today. Until I started my first ever National Novel Writing Month.
Now, the word count tool is frequently consulted.
I didn’t start writing until about 4:00 o’clock yesterday afternoon, at the Tattered Cover store where a write-in event for NaNoWriMo was held. We wrote, with some talking of course, until about 6:30.
Then I started again this morning and now, at about 9:30 a.m., I have written, according to the Word Count tool in the Word software on this computer: 6,098 words.
Remember, this effort is all about exuberant imperfection. About getting the butt in the chair and 50,000 words into a document. My Inner Editor has been kenneled up for the month.
Now and then I hear her whining but the message isn’t clear and I’m not paying enough attention to the whining and growling to make it out. Something about inauthentic dialogue, clunky transitions? Nah. Not this month. Go gnaw a bone, Inner Editor. You can come out to play next month.
In the meantime? I’m following some characters along their chosen path which may not lead where I had expected, and that’s just fine.
