two pages

As you know, word count is a big thing for NaNoWriMo. The aim is at least 50,000 words by November 30. People track their progress by the number of words completed. I was aiming for at least 40,000 words, since that's the cutoff for a novel according to the Interweb.

I asked my friend Melissa (hi, Melissa! *waves*) to read two chapters for feedback and to check for parallel structure this evening, and she kindly obliged. One of the chapters, she liked; the other, not so much. Thankfully, the one she likes is the one I would probably retire from writing if she hadn't liked, so whew on that one. The other one? My ego smarts a bit, but I know something is off --she's right. 

I think the parallel structure is off. To correct it, I need to lose about 500 words. From my project for NaNoWriMo. Not only am I talking about editing, I'm talking about cutting my word count by quite a bit for the day.

A little panic set in. Maybe I should just leave it? I'm supposed to wait to edit, right? Losing words in this battle that is all about having enough words seems extremely counterproductive. Yikes.

And then, I realized my panicked reaction reminded me of something from high school ...

[insert groovy flashback waves]

Biology class. Our teacher, Mr. Shall-Remain-Nameless, give us an assignment to write three pages on ...something. I blocked that part out. This isn't a pleasant story. Anyhow, the assignment was to write three pages and we were given a list of questions we needed to answer in those three pages.

I answered all of the questions thoroughly in two pages.

For my trouble, I received a 67% (a failing mark) because I only did 2/3 of the work, even though it contained all of the needed content. I like to think it was also extremely well written, but I honestly can't remember --it was high school, and that happened in the last century.

I didn't use enough words, but the content was sufficient that I received full credit for that part of it.

As an educator, I think that was a questionable call on that teacher's part, but that's hindsight. At the time, I complained but accepted the grade since those were the directions. I tended to have trouble following directions I found arbitrary, so accepting lower marks for disagreements wasn't anything new.

In the here and now, it's my call. I'd rather say what I want to say succinctly, without added words just to add words. Why add words that don't serve any purpose other than to take up some of the word count? 

I will end up with more than 40,000 words when all is said and done --this plot I'm working with is too complex for that not to happen. Do I need those extra 500 words now that make it sound "wrong"? No. I'd rather get rid of them now and not have them muddy things up.

Is that contrary to the way NaNoWriMo is done? *shrug*

I will finish this novel. Will it be done within the NaNoWriMo timeframe? Maybe. We'll see. Likely, it'll be in December, but I am working on it. The important part is that it will get done in the number of words and the number of pages it needs to be to tell the story I'm telling.