NaNoWriMo 2017, Day 7: Some Random Thoughts

I seem to have reached the point in the month where it's easier to write the story than to think of anything to say about what I'm doing. There's only so many times you can say 'wrote more words today' before you just can't face it again. *scrolls back* Um... four times, apparently. I can probably do better than that.

So, thoughts after a week of NaNoWriMo:

1. "You just sort of do it" is still the only way I can describe how pantsing a novel works. I could go on about mental pictures of what a novel should look like and the need to have some kind of deep understanding of how stories and storytelling work, but it doesn't matter, because you don't need to consciously think about those things while writing. It's general writer knowledge, not pantsing-specific knowledge. So basically I can't explain what I'm doing and I think I need to be okay with that.

2. Screen brightness makes a huge difference to how well I can write -- to the point where I basically can't write at all on my desktop, and can only write on my laptop if I run it on battery (which lowers the brightness beyond the plugged-in minimum.

3. If this is the kind of character I want to write right now, it totally makes sense that none of the older projects I was looking at in October were 'the one'. The things I need have changed too much for me to easily slip back into an old story.

So, that's my first week done. Onwards! or something.