So shortly after my energy-rush happy dance, sprinkled ice cream, and post-blogging crash, I did what people should probably never EVER do: I took a peek at the "competition". I use the word sparingly because really the 3 Day Novel is a self-challenge, you should only be competing against your own procrastination and self-doubt, so anything you produced ends up being a win, so long as you surpassed what you would normally do on your regular schedule. Even the contest rules are pretty lax about what you actually produce during this weekend sprint. 

Nonetheless, I hopped onto twitter following the #3daynovel tag and looked through what other participants had accomplished. Clearly, just by doing this I had relinquished the reigns of my brain functions from "rational reason" and let "emotional impulse" be in control for a little while. 

I don't want to throw down the stereotype card and say "it's a girl thing", but I will fully admit that it's a me thing. I do this. And it never ends well.

Now, the fact that the whole day after the contest I felt like I had been hit by a bus, probably didn't help either. I think that "rational reason" was struck trying to boot up from a system that still ran off of Windows Vista... and in its absence, "emotional impulse" just steps in before the whole place has a nuclear meltdown while left unattended... and then proceeds to put the whole system into nuclear meltdown standby in a matter of minutes anyways, so all in all it's a very faulty system and I should probably get it upgraded or refunded, but then I wouldn't be the lovable me who walks into walls and is determined that every conversation should be riddled with obscure quotes that no one else really follows...
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Other Person: I'm aware
Me: "I thought you said your name was Victor."
Other Person (who incidentally is NOT named Victor): ????

...Good Burger, in case you were wondering...

Anyways! 

If you recall, I did over 43,000 words, and I had to rush through what probably should have been at least the last 10,000 words in the final 15 minutes so it ended up being just a few sentences per scene that I had to cram in there. But, nonetheless, I did it. It's pretty much garbage at the end, but it's there - sort of. And yet, despite the quality that was produced, I was, and still am, pretty freaking proud that I pulled all of that off in just 3 days. 

So there I am, scrolling through the twitter results, and there are the cries of victories. And, of course, I am happy for them! We just did something that shouldn't be humanly possible! We are superheroes with obscure/useless powers, but they are superpowers nonetheless, damn it! (That last part was the Hugh Jackman Van Helsing in case you were wondering, if you could hear me, I said it in a very specific voice - and yes, sometimes I do say what I write aloud - which I didn't notice so much before this 3 day sprint, but holy hell do I mutter a lot when I write!)

But there is one reoccurring theme among my fellow victors that I just can't get over. How many of them had time to go back over their whole story to revise before submitting. I barely finished my story, let alone got a chance to read it over! How in the bloody hell does someone write 50,000 words in a weekend, reread it, and edit it, all within 3 days?!?!!?! 

At this point I feel very out of my league. My accomplishment is nothing. I probably shouldn't even have submitted it for entry. I do not have superpowers - even useless ones...

So I follow up with some of these godly accomplishments...

20,000 words.

At first I read it as they just wrote 20,000 words in the 3rd day, which makes total sense because if your minimum novel is 50,000, then 20,000 words per day over three days is a great 60,000 word novel! But that still doesn't answer how the hell they can manage 20,000 words per day and still have time to reread and edit!

Then it hits me.

They didn't write 20,000 words per day! They wrote 20,000 words TOTAL!

And then this is where S#*% gets real...

IN WHAT F***ING UNIVERSE IS 20,000 WORDS A F***ING NOVEL!!!! *table flip* *rage quit* *Hulk smash!*

Luckily I'm pretty much a bottler, so rage brain didn't venture out into the twitterverse, thank god! because I would not want live with a permanent reminder of how rage brain rages. Now is okay, because rational me is in the operation booth again, so we can look back safely at the rage brain meltdown that happened when happy, light and fluffy emotional impulse noticed a small crack in the system. Besides, since I'm not screaming at anyone, in person or at a computer screen, I can acknowledge that I do have a point.

I in no way mean to belittle the accomplishment of anyone who pulled off 20,000 words or fewer. You wrote, and that's all that matters. But I'm kind of a stickler for following the rules, and I take the written word pretty darn seriously, so when it says "3 Day Novel", I associate 50,000+ words, or else it would be the 3 Day Novella Contest, or the 3 Day Novellette Contest, or even the 3 Day Story of Any Length Contest. But, it specifically says "Novel" on everything, and so, "Novel" is what I went for. 

Why did this bother me so much? Well, just days before the contest began, I started spontaneously developing another older idea I've had floating along with me in my mental Rolodex, and I pushed it aside because I knew that the story wouldn't be rich enough to get me to 50,000 words. I rejected a shorter story because it would not be a NOVEL. 

Understand the rage quit now? Had I gone with that idea instead, I too probably could have finished it, reread it, and submitted it with some knowledge that I must have caught at least a few typos and missing words. 

Live and learn. 

But knowing me, I probably still wouldn't have used that idea. I challenged myself to write a novel, and a novel is 50,000+ words. I wouldn't have accepted any less from myself. And while I know that 43,000 is not 50,000, I know for a fact that when I get my hands back on it and fix it up, Among Beasts will be well beyond 50,000!

The lesson here: I'm petty and pretentious. Sorry. Apparently that's my superpower.

It is 1am on September 6th. I have participated in the 3 Day Novel contest and so far have lived to tell about it.

Actually, to be honest, I thought I'd be in much rougher shape. Aside from the last 20 minutes where I really had to panic, I actually pretty at peace with the whole process. I think I managed this miracle with the help of a few key factors. 
1) I put an outline together in my handy-dandy Hilroy!
2) I've been on a bit of a writing dry-spell. I've been doing a lot of editing work this year, but since I skipped NaNoWriMo last year, I really haven't written anything new in a very long time. I almost forgot that I do like to write!
3) My story stayed vivid to me.

In planning for this challenge, I tackled it in the terms of NaNoWriMo. The shortest wordcount definition for a novel being 50,000 words, so that's what I aimed to do for this as well - only 10 times as fast since instead of 30 days to write 50,000, I'd have 3. Which meant that I'd have to aim for just under 17,000 words per day.

I'm gonna tell you right now that I cannot write 17,000 words a day. I'm not a speedy writer. Still, I tried. 

Day 1, I surprised myself by pulling off just over 15,000 words. I started at midnight, wrote just over 3,000, and then when I woke again and added 12,000. I followed my outline fairly closely, I just added a few extra chapter breaks since my scenes ended up plumping out more than I originally thought they would. Great for those scenes, not so great for plugging through a whole novel in 3 days. Short on my word count and only a couple of ticks down on my outline.

Day 2 ended up being very similar to day 1. I wrote about 12,000 words and that was all of the steam that I had in me. Once again, I ended up delving into scenes that I absolutely loved. Great for those scenes, not great for only having a day left to use.

And then finally, Day 3. This was the do or die day. I was beyond the halfway point as far as my 50,000 word projection, but I was only really just at my halfway mark in my plot. A little disheartening knowing that I'd pull it off beautifully if it were the 4 day novel challenge. But I went for it. Trying hard to just get to the next scene. Rejecting the "Show Don't Tell" mantra because, damn it, Jim, I've got a story to tell!

I had told myself that by 10:00pm I would just forget about writing proper narrative and just start listing plot as a makeshift ending to just slap the final scene on this thing. Well, next thing I know it's 11:30 and I'm just building up to the much anticipated climax. Can't go into detail with the actual climax, and sure as hell can't play out all of that falling action. Skip, skip, skip. Lots of people died. Skip, skip skip. By the way, she's there now because she wasn't there when all of the other people died. Skip, skip, skip. The end, kinda, except there's this epilogue thingy that we don't have to have, and oh, hey look, it's midnight, I guess we're done. 43, 396!

So I saved it. Sent it. And immediately wanted to fix up that whole last bit of sloppy narrative mess. Clearly I picked a story that was a little too ambitious for 3 days, but I'm still convinced that 4 days would have been just fine for a first draft. Yes, the NaNoWriMo participant in me can't believe the words that just came out of my mouth... er, fingertips? A whole first draft in 4 days! 

I can't say that I'll be making a habit of this. I feel great about doing it this time around, and with a little work, I think I'll have a decent piece of work here, but a weekend novel is pretty intense, and I'm not confident that I can have everything lined up the way that it did for me this time. Part luck as much as planning. 

I'll be sticking to NaNoWriMo. And  a new draft a year is alright for me considering how long it takes to work, re-work, and edit, edit, edit. But I'd be willing to do this again. Maybe in a few years, or if I find myself in another dry-spell. 

I'm sure this won't be my last note on the subject. Prepare for a series of rants that my now crashing-brain is just not processing anymore. 
I was bursting with energy a while ago, but as I look at the clock, it's already after 2:00am. It has taken me an entire hour just to write this post. 

I must be crazy. In two days (well, one and a half I suppose), I will undertake the daunting task of completing a full first draft novel within 3 days. I can barely pull this off in 30 with my annual participation in NaNoWriMo. I don't know what compelled me to try this other than the fact that this is the first year that I'm not school planning over labour day. Hopefully it won't hurt me to try it just once... I feel like there is a whole history department out there dedicated just to the people who proved that statement wrong...

Anyways, in order to prepare, I have completed a rough outline, and consulted the Survival Guide. I won't share the whole Guide, after all, you can just click the link to read all 8 pages of it, but I will share the conclusion, because that was the one that I think I'll need to keep with me over the weekend - and it was too big to put into a tweet!

I don't know if I'll make it. I don't know if the novel will. But I'm sure I'll have a lot to rant about when it's all over - if I can write in complete sentences that is.

Publicists must be a special kind of creature. PR is not my natural habitat. But I've been plugging along, putting marketing plans into place, updating budget sheets (so over budget), and I find that with all of that, it's so easy to dwell on the numbers. And there are so many numbers. Costs, sales, views, reviews, etc. I was supposed to be using the time between updates about giveaways and releases to get back on the horse with White Rabbits - which incidentally seems to no longer want to call itself White Rabbits after re-writing an outline and starting almost from scratch again. Sure, now that the giveaways are all over with and Freakhouse is officially released I should be able to get back into it, but then I went and did something else to torture myself with...

​

I know. I didn't even try to do NaNoWriMo last year and here I am deciding that 50,000+ words can be completed in 3 days. I suppose it must make up for my lack of effort last year? In any case, this starts up in exactly one week! 

I have an idea. In fact, when I signed-up I was going over my mental Rolodex of ideas trying to decide on which one was developed enough to put to the test. Ended up delving into one idea that never really felt fully there, and I personally cannot start on a story unless I know where we're heading, and that was the part that always eluded me. Then I realized why I never understood where the ending was going - totally focusing on the wrong character. The character I start with is not the character I end with!

I know, it sounds confusing, but trust me, now the story actually has a plot! So I have my Hilroy scribbler  ready with a smattering of notes, and over these next 6 days I will be outlining in that little notebook because gods, old and new, help me if I try to navigate this thing in 3 days without a map!

So I suppose the plus side to all of this is that I will be forced to write. The downside is that I may just be adding to my pile of WIP's. That last one bothers me. I don't like leaving things unfinished. Even in reading. I've been working on one book for months. I hate it! It sucks all the joy out of reading, so I've been cheating and reading other things on the side so that I actually remember how much I love books. The resounding advice I've been getting is to just drop the book entirely. No one will care if I don't actually finish it. Well, I will care. I need to just read it and get it done and over with, and never, ever, ever touch another one of the books in that series again, regardless of badly my friends adore it!

This may also be why I feel like I have a lot to do. I'm not in school. I shouldn't be forced to read things I don't care for. And yet, I just can't not finish it. Like when I was in school and just couldn't fit all of the readings in so I had to abandon the odd one and just fake it in the class while I got a head start on a different reading - I still went back to read those other books over the summer because I felt guilty. 

What kind of condition is that to feel book guilty? "I'm sorry I couldn't read you." Even worse is this one that I'm currently reading. It's as bad as "I know this relationship isn't going anywhere, but damn it, I chose to initiate and so let's just force ourselves into it despite the fact that neither of us wants to, and I will probably go from disinterest to full on resentment for being forced to tolerate you." 

I may have unhealthy relationships with books. I may need librarian intervention. "Just put the book down."

At least I have some self-control when it comes to human relationships, otherwise there'd be no hope for me at all. And I need all of the hope I can get if I'm going to survive the 3 Day Novel Contest.