Total Word Count So Far: 14 015

Come last Saturday, as in the day before yesterday, I was a wreck.

After one week of NaNoWriMo and 12 345 words in the bank, I felt drained and defeated and not too crash hot about what I had written.

Granted, this is supposed to be about – in the words of NaNo founder Chris Baty – “having fun writing crap.”

Granted, as I said before starting this whole darn thing, output is what counts here.

But as it turns out, while I am in the habit of writing crap, I am NOT in the habit of carrying on writing it regardless.

I need to fix the crap, move on till it gets crap again, fix that and so on and so forth.

And I know I the trick to 5oK is: Keep moving, don’t look back, don’t rewrite.

But come Saturday, when I realized the last 2000 words or so were nothing more than excrement – masturbation if I was lucky, I could not proceed. Correction. Would not proceed.

Have fun writing crap? Are you mad?

If I wanted to do that, I’d write soap on TV.

Writing crap isn’t satisfying, let alone fun. It’s irresponsible and quite frankly, bad karma.

You think Stephen King’s Misery was some fictional horror story? It’s what really happens to writers who sell out and write empty characters or stories that don’t mean anything.

It’s what happens to writers who continue to write crap after they realize what they’re writing IS crap.

So, you see, on Saturday I was going slightly nuts.

Which is when I decided to take the day off and do fuck all.

Did not turn on the computer – not so much as a glance. No internet. No email. No Twitter.

Just the company of friends and family, good food and beer and conversations about Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s policy on asylum seekers, Fort Hood, Britney Spears lip syncing in Australia… Everything but work and what I was writing.

Here’s what I figured.

If on Monday, I felt the same way I had on Saturday, I would scrap what I needed to scrap and start from there. Screw the quota. Screw the motto.

Asking me to have fun writing crap is like asking me to have fun cooking with bad ingredients or have fun losing a game of poker.

Baking a cake with off milk – no fun. Losing at Texas Hold ‘em – no fun. Writing 50 000 words of crap – no fun.

This morning, I turned the computer on, refreshed and without dread. Printed out what I had written and you know what? It didn’t read that bad.

It wasn’t perfect and needed some fine-tuning, a couple of edits here and there, but it didn’t require the kind of overhaul I had anticipated.

I scrapped about a thousand words but wrote heaps more than I usually do in one sitting – over 3000 words. I’m much happier about where the story’s heading and how the characters are developing. Most importantly, I have refueled and am ready for another week.

One day off makes all the difference.

If you feel like slitting your wrists, a day off will make you content with a couple of Valium and a stiff drink.

If you feel like killing someone, a day off will make you content with just punching them.

And if you’re ready to quit, a day off will make you feel not quite ready to do that.

At least not today. Maybe tomorrow.