Chapter 1: Starting Out: The First Chapter

I sat in my office. I wrote “Chapter 1: Starting Out: The First Chapter.” It seemed like a good, very descriptive title for the first chapter. I liked it, and I knew I could change it I didn’t like it later. But I never did stop liking it. It really spoke to me! Then I wrote the three sentences leading to this sentence, four, after editing, and started this sentence. And then I had finished it and was writing this one. I took a breath, and prepared to write more sentences. Some would appear on this page, I knew, some on the next page and the next, I believed, and eventually, with enough sentences, my novel would be done, I hoped. I had little more idea what I was going to write now than I would have in Epilogue 1, when I would write it later, before I moved it earlier. But that didn’t matter. Or wouldn’t. I really liked to write, and I was writing. And liking it. “I’ve written eighty three words,” I said to myself at the point in the first draft when I had written eighty three words. “Only 49,927 words left to go. I can do it! Providing I don’t have to update each word count each time I edit.” I wisely decided to stick with historical word counts rather than accurate ones. “After you first stupidly updated the word counts about twenty times,” said my inner critic That was true, and that took fifteen words. Encouraging myself took eighteen more words. Noting that I’d written another eighteen words took six more. And noting that took another ten. I’d written 115 words words already, not counting the words in this sentence that followed the word ‛written,’ which added twenty-three to my total. And after I’d edited a few times, even more words. But no one was counting any more. Except me. “Keep it up and you’ll finish your 50,000 word novel!” I encouraged myself, adding ten words to my total. “It may be the world’s stupidest novel, but that doesn’t matter.” Not to me. I’d signed up for NaNoWriMo, which I’ve decided to explain in the next chapter, which I’ve decided to call What Is NaNoWriMo? Making decisions like that will turn out to be important. But I won’t find that out until later. My goal right now is simple: to write a 50,000 word novel and become a NaNoWriMo win­ ner. With 253 words already written in the first draft I was 0.506% there! Then suddenly, without warning, other than these final fourteen words, my first chapter ended. Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies 70 Pages! “It took you 70 pages to get to the first chapter!” My inner critic exclaims. “That’s ridicu­ lous!” “That was in the fifteenth draft,” I answer. “Originally it only took one page. Then two, after I moved the epilogue before the first chapter. I’ll do some editing later. I’ll tighten it up.” Many drafts later, near what ultimately would be the final draft, and after reformatting, it only took 26 pages. “You’re actually proud of that? Asked my inner critic. “Taking 26 pages to get to the first thing that you wrote—a chapter about writing the first chapter?” “I’m not proud,” I answered. “I’m not embarrassed. It’s just a fact.” “It’s a stupid chapter,” said my inner critic. “It’s a self-referential chapter,” I said to my inner critic. “It’s a chapter about itself. And that’s given me an idea.” “I can hardly wait to find out,” said my inner critic. “You’ll have to wait,” I said. “First, you have to hear about NaNoWriMo.” “I can hardly wait for that either,” said my inner critic. Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies