NaNo What Mo?

Ok, I give up.  Who else but a group of writers would designate an entire month as "Novel Writing?"

It's terrifically motivating to get up each morning in November and realize that thousands of others just like you are cranking out required word minimums on the Next Great American Novel.

Or is it?

If you're like me, that sort of external motivation doesn't work.  Some quirk in my psyche (and I have a few) balks at this and forces my mind to come up with excuses NOT to write.  Stupid ones too, like "laundry", "housework", or even "nap."

To me, if there is a story in my head, careening around and bouncing off my brain pan I gotta get it out there.  I have one now as a matter of fact. A time travel tale with a hot, early 1900s-era German brewer (who looks a LOT like Til Schweiger just sayin') who turns the corner in his famous brewery to find a beautiful woman knocked out cold, dressed in denim and some brewing company tee shirt.  They have a very hot night once she revives.  But when she wakes up in his arms he's still "in character" from the quaint little tour she thought she was on---anyways, the point about my personal writing process is that if I sit here and try and flesh that sucker out any more than those brief lines I will disappear into a rabbit hole, never to emerge completely until the damn thing is finished.




Oh, you might see my body, at the grocery store, or driving my kid to soccer, or pouring beer at my bar but I'm not there.  I'm with those characters, in their heads, in their skin, using their words and living in their world.  Snap your fingers in front of my eyes and I might focus but only for a second until I can plop back in front of the computer and Get It Done.

That is the thinking behind NaNo I am guessing.  (does anyone beside me start picturing a young, long-haired Robin Williams every time you say it?  no? okay, never mind).

Give yourself a finite number of days to crank out that novel that's clanging around upstairs.  No excuses. No naps.  Sit and write until it is done.

But that's how I always write.

Right now, I can't because I'm too busy promoting (see: my earlier lectures on promote or perish).  When I'm in that mode (which lately has dovetailed with "editing" for other stuff) I simply cannot allow myself to think too hard about .....  Max: a hunky, blond, tall, blue-eyed, Alpha, slightly bossy German brewing genius who wears tight brown trousers and boots as he tromps around his brewery and yells at anyone in his way and who nurtures a deep fear of commitment until confronted with...Johanna, the dark-eyed, lovely woman brewer from the year 2012 --- the love of his life who's unfortunately fallen through some sort of rip in the time/space thingie (I gotta work out the Magik bits as it's not my area really)
oh crap....now see what you've started??

Otherwise, I'm a goner.  And my family misses me so when I in the writing rabbit hole.

What is your style? Are you doing this Mork 'n Mindy sounding thing this month? Does it help motivate you or make you want to take illicit naps in the middle of the day?

cheers
Liz