Writing for the fun of it

I'm four days into NaNoWriMo -- the month-long writing challenge to get a 50,000 word novel written.

The first day was hard for me. I wanted to start something good, something marketable. I worried too much about the words. I broke free a little and got 3117 words down.

The second day was much better. I'd loosened up. Another more than 3200 words. The next two I got a couple thousand words written and started enjoying it.

Each day has gotten better. I'm having fun. The characters aren't the ones I came up with, they've already changed. Their secrets are starting to come out, their vulnerabilities. I'm getting to know them.

The first thing I had to overcome, which is always a struggle, is that little voice in the back of your mind that says: you don't really think this is a viable book, do you? Who cares about these characters? Where is the plot? What are we doing here? Wasting a month.

The thing is I've never really believed writing is ever a waste. Often times I write scenes that never make the book. Apparently though I needed to write them.

I believe that writing a novel is about getting to know your characters. I do that by standing them up, get them walking and talking and then they write the book -- I just take it down.

That means letting characters loose, letting them be themselves. Sometimes they make me uncomfortable with what they do or say. They aren't me. I wouldn't do some of the things they do nor say what they say.

How is it possible the author doesn't know what her characters are going to do? Beats me. It's the magic of writing.

So that's what I'm doing this month. Enjoying the magic. No worries. No problems.

Where is this story going? Probably nowhere. Doesn't matter. I'm writing. It's 1959 on Hebgen Lake in a small campground resort. My heroine is 12. Her father has left her and her mother there for the summer. She is trying to survive her parents problems as well as her own as summer draws to an end in the days just before the earthquake that changed everything.

It must be a story I have to write.