The year of writing faster

I did have one huge good thing I did with my writing this year, I finished half a novel. In participating in NaNoWriMo (the month of November 50,000 words novel writing event) I finally realized I can pound out vast quantities of sentences and chapters. Remember, I'm a poet. We're talking a page of writing short lines with lots of spaces. After NaNoWriMo was over, I knew two things. I should have written it in first person and I'll need to throw a lot more misery and conflict in my hero's path. You just cannot be nice to your main character. There is no get-out-of-jail card in fiction if you want to keep things interesting. All those touching scenes and sweetness that I wrote, ugh, I was channeling some sort of Waltons rerun. Gack! I can't smooth things for my characters and behave like their stage mom. I am the supreme being, that is to say, the plot master. So I started researching just how someone coming of age in Brooklyn in 1912 would talk. I need my character to appear subservient but have a lively funny inner dialogue that will eventually be part of her overt character as she grows up. Oh yeah, one other thing I learned, when you write a lot, and really let it happen, some unexpected riffs happen. It is rather wonderful to give up the illusion of control and be rewarded for it.

I wish all of you, this coming year, a chance to write a galloping first draft of something, with no slowing down for quality or consistency. Write it fast. Rewrite it slow. Later, we'll workshop.