I'm just really tired. I don't know if I'll be able to finish the story, and at the moment I'm just slogging along wishing it was midnight.... but then I keep remembering that I have to at least try to finish it. Three and a quarter more hours...

... and the space around my computer looks like I've been living here for the last day and a half. Scary. 

(a little later)

Second wind? Maybe not. But a certain amount of desparation has gone out of this. I know I'm going to expand this a lot when I go back to it. And I know I might not get to what I'd consider an ending.

But I can start an ending.  And the point is not to write a good novel in three days.

Posted by Kathryn Hunt at 8:43 PM EDT

Updated: Friday, 30 June 2006 9:39 PM EDT

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This is going to be such a marathon. Halfway through, I think, or less, with a day to go, and I know that I've written probably a total of 8 hours in the last couple of days - actual time-on-task, that is - so I know that in the next 12 hours I _can_ write enough to fill out this novel. But I have to have the stamina to just sit here and type. For the rest of the day. God help me. 

The point is to write a novel in three days. Not to write a good novel in three days.  

And I have to say, I'm still curious to find out what will happen when I get into the writer's equivalent of runner's high... 

Posted by Kathryn Hunt at 11:18 AM EDT

Updated: Friday, 30 June 2006 8:55 PM EDT

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The point of this exercise is to write a novel in three days. 

Not to write a good novel in three days. 

I keep having to tell myself that. And keep plowing on even though I know the plot is weak and sooner or later I'm going to have to accept that my vilain is, in fact, a fairly blank slate so far with no actual game plan or even motivation. And my premise is ludicrous. And I am less than a third of the way through, and two-thirds of the way through the allotted time. 

Everyone should try this. There's a real lesson in learning how to write badly. Usually, when I write fiction, it's because I have a cool idea, and it's pretty decent. Now, I'm writing because I have to, and it's forced and awkward in spots and illogical in others and will probably wind up choppily paced and anticlimactic.

Everyone should try this! 

Posted by Kathryn Hunt at 9:52 PM EDT

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Wow. Nothing points out your skills at procrastination like a deadline, and a totally self-imposed one at that. 

Day one of the three day novel, 11:30, and I've managed to write 10 pages, waste a lot of time on the bus, talking to people, working on publishing other people's stuff, going to a grant writing workshop (which was, admittedly, useful) and discovering that probably the best thing I can do at this point is go to the public library, (where rob mclennan kindly pointed me at the cubicles with electrical outlets,) plug my laptop in at one of them, snag some CDs from the first floor, and work there, because Oh My God is my apartment conducive to procrastination. 

rob pointed out that although it is the 100th anniversary of the Ottawa Public Library, there was nothing listed on Lycos (the catalogue system) including the word "Ottawa." Curiouser and curiouser. 

 Tomorrow I think I'll go to the library in the morning. I got more sustained writing done there than I did the whole rest of the day. Cable internet can be a bitch.  With any luck, I'll feel less . . . literarily flaccid . . . by the end of tomorrow. That feeling of having missed the boat shouldn't be kicking in this early in the game, should it?

My friend Sean has got his novel all plotted out. I feel so... haphazard. 

Oh, the grant writing workshop - fairly useful and inspirational. Run by the Trillium Foundation, and nicely attended.  

Posted by Kathryn Hunt at 11:28 PM EDT

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60 hours and 45 minutes left in which to write my three day novel. So far, I've got a page and a quarter written, which I started as soon as the clock struck midnight last night/this morning. This morning I've managed to make coffee and some toast, and check my email, and come waste time here. The feeling when I woke up was interesting, though - almost felt like the morning of a particularly tough exam.

Better get to work, I've got 40 000 words to write (or as close as I can get...)

Oh, and the review of Quebecite? Apparently the new interface this blog host has just put up (which I don't like much) won't let me cut and paste it in, and I'm not retyping it now, so it'll have to wait until I can post it as a web page (which I've been meaning to do) and link to it. Apologies. 

Posted by Kathryn Hunt at 9:13 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, 28 June 2006 9:27 AM EDT

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