Over the last two weeks, I ended up writing a lot of fan fiction. The first piece (and the best in my own very self-critical opinion) was inspired and I enjoyed sharing it with the kids. The kids, however, liked it so much that they wanted more stories.

Who am I to disappoint so many sweet, adoring faces?

I was completely stuck on what to write until one day, another inspiration struck. I didn’t have a way to make a note of it, so I turned to one of the kids who liked to write with me and told him to remember two words: kame and library. He turned to me and innocently asked, “Kame-gain?” (pronounced kah-may-gain, kind of sounds like “Come again”)

We laughed and I repeated the words to be sure he heard them both. Then we debated making Kame-gain the name of some type of shop. The really funny part was that the kame I wanted him to remember for me was already the name of a shop in the fandom I was writing for.

It actually became a running joke the rest of the week with all of the kids in my group. At least they were mostly pleased by the bit of that story that I managed to finish.

I’ve been writing a lot this week. I’ve written another chapter for the novel I was writing during NaNoWriMo 2003. I’ve also started writing a fan fiction, something I haven’t done in nearly two years. I keep threatening to, but this week was the first time I felt really inspired to sit down and start writing one again.

I’m very fascinated by my activities as a writer. When I have no word count to write to, I can write forever and ever. I write well. When I have a word count, I tend to write some very odd things…like the exact same sentence three times in a row worded differently each time.

With no word count, I write dialogue that could actually be spoken by a human being. With a word count, my dialogue could have generated by the same program that gave us lorum ipsem blahblahblah.

Somehow or other, I just prefer my writing when I’m not obsessed with the word count. I know there’s a way to trick myself into thinking that any of my word-count pieces aren’t to help encourage better writing, but I just don’t seem inclined to give it a try yet. November is rapidly approaching, so I really ought to figure out how I’m going to combat the word-count monster.

I think part of the problem is that I’m trying to write inside boundaries when I write against a word count. I had the same problem in school (although that had more to do with the fact I’m a concise writer). Tell me I have to write so many words or pages, and I’ll fall short every time while still managing to say everything I need to. I’ve considered just going with the interconnected short-story route for National Novel Writing Month, because short stories seem more attainable these days than the full-length novel (despite the fact I’ve already written two…).

I guess we’ll see. Right now, though, this daily writing is excellent practice for November!