My writing week #12

NaNoWriMo has come and gone for another year and over the past week my Facebook news feed has been full of status updates from writer friends who have ‘won’ the challenge – that is, written more than 50,000 words of a novel in November. First of all, congratulations to them all – a stellar achievement.

Seeing these updates, along with the ones giving daily word counts, got me thinking about my writing style. Despite much advice to the contrary, and the clear ability of others to do so, I cannot churn out words when it comes to creative writing. It just does not happen for me. I can type up notes, incomplete sentences and dot points – no problem. But to write full sentences, paragraphs and pages – no way, josé. In November, I managed to get my manuscript from 15,000 words to 30,000 words. While 15,000 words is not a lot compared with 50,000 I’m happy with what I’ve produced. So what if I linger over a word, or phrase? In an article I wrote today (a submission for Serenity Press’s upcoming Writing The Dream anthology) about how reading has influenced my writing, I described the way I write as such:

Creative writing is like cooking a meal for loved ones: choosing the best possible produce, mixing ingredients, adding seasoning to taste and a dash of love, and plating it up with flair. – Monique Mulligan

Interestingly, the 3000-word article only took me a couple of hours to write. Which got me thinking again … it seems I can churn out newspaper articles and non-fiction at a fast rate, but not fiction. Essays for uni also took me a while because I was aiming for High Distinctions. I can write blog posts quickly … but I’m slower with reviews. Is it because I set myself a higher bar for creative writing or writing for examination? What do you think?

I’ve not taken many photos lately, but here are a few I took last week. Which is your favourite?