Seeing my word count for this morning, I am perplexed, surprised, and can only reason it was because I wrote in multiple timed sprints, because my writing sure didn’t flow this morning.

I had one of those nights of sleep where, even as I slept, I was planning how I was going to flake on my first day & ignore my alarm set to ring at 5:30am.

Because I was already planning my excuses, I slept fitfully all night, worried that I would’t wake up, that I didn’t want to wake up, and after doing this six or twelve times, looked at my phone and saw it was 4:58am. I could not think of a good reason to stay in bed, considering that would mean I would continue thinking about writing.

My plan for the morning was to continue writing from Alex’s perspective, who is the daughter character in my novel. The mother is Katherine, if you want to keep my people straight. If you do manage to keep my people straight, maybe I could ask you when I forget? Just a thought …

I really did not want to write as Alex, having left her in a place where I didn’t know what she was going to do next, and I worried it would be droll and boring.

But before I started, I thought to look at Twitter, because last night after a bit too much sangria at a Halloween party, I saw a bunch of posts from @NaNoSprints about timed writing intervals and thought, let’s give that a try, since my plan to write was nebulous at best.

Writing today was not effortless, it was, actually, like pulling a stubborn, thorny rosebush out of the garden, using my bare hands, and wearing shorts. This is probably because I’m resisting letting my characters be who they want to be. I somehow think I have ownership over their hypothetical lives, because they are in my head.

The lunatic is in my head, too, according to Pink Floyd. The lunatic who is trying to control the characters in my novel instead of letting them have their own dramas and adventures.

Writing today wasn’t fun, and it wasn’t pretty. My sentences weren’t tied up neatly in a silver box with a fancy silver fabric ribbon, like they were from Nordstrom’s. No, writing today was unwrapping a dirty cardboard box full of old yellow newspaper, with stains I hope were coffee, and pulling out something that does not look valuable on first glance, but I suspect could be valuable, once I take out some silver polish and arduously rub away the tarnish and grime.

About that not-insubstantial word count, for day 1? The credit goes to @NaNoSprints. I did 6, 10 minute sprints, culminating in a word count beyond the day 1 target of 1,667 words. I left my inner critic on the sidelines, sweeping up confetti.

Next: Morning Pages to the Rescue (Day 2)