Well, my first day of NaNoWriMo has come and gone, and I have passed the first test...getting started with the first words of my novel, and surpassing the day's writing quota!
Today I wrote 2,738 words, about 1,000 more than the minimum daily requirement. I want to try to write more than the minimum on the weekends, because I (theoretically) have more time to write on the weekends, and because I know there will be days in November when it will be very difficult if not impossible to write (election day, Thanksgiving, etc.), so I want to have extra words in the bank for those days.
I'm very relieved to have finally started. I spent a couple months this year researching for this book, and I was feeling a lot of anxiety about being ready and knowing enough to be able to tell the story well enough to be readable (unlike Hitler's own book, Mein Kampf, which is reputed to have sections that *are* unreadably bad, and not just because of the despicable philosophy he held!).
I had developed a pretty solid outline for the whole book, but I was feeling a lot of anxiety about the beginning, because I wasn't sure how to start the book. The story really centers around events that occur within the span of a week, but it requires a lot of setup for the reader to understand and appreciate the significance and the emotional impact of that particular week. There are a lot of characters, and a lot of competing agendas that lead to the events of that week, and I couldn't figure out how to stitch together the various historical events leading up to the Night of Long Knives that would convey all of that with the cohesion and efficiency one usually finds in a novel.
A few days ago, I managed to devise a scene that I felt would accomplish this, and when I came up with it and sketched it out, I felt a huge relief, a sudden calm that made me feel more ready than I realized up to that point I was. But still, actually sitting down today and beginning to WRITE the scene feels really good and reassuring. Not only do I have a scene to start with, but it's appearing on the page, my book is started, and I'm on my way.
I'm so glad I did so much prep work, because I feel like I will have very little trouble over the next 30 days figuring out "what happens next." Virtually my entire plot is laid out, and every day I sit down I can just grind it out, so the challenge for me in writing this novel will be giving the scenes the texture and authenticity that will make them fascinating for the reader. While I don't think what I've put to paper so far is anywhere near perfect, at least I've started, and I'm continually reminding myself that the sole challenge of the next 30 days is quantity, never quality (that's for December). So I'm feeling ok about what I have so far; it's not awesome, but it's not bad either. As I say, I've started, and that's the important thing.
This scene I devised is one of only two scenes in the entire book outline that are completely fictional; everything else is a historically recorded event. My book starts out with Hitler and the top Nazi leadership at the opera house, where one of Hitler's favorite operas, Tristan und Isolde, from one of Hitler's favorite composers (Richard Wagner) is being performed (it really was a Hitler favorite).
It's late January 1934, one year after Hitler has been made chancellor of Germany, and Minister without Portfolio Hermann Goehring has arranged an anniversary celebration and banquet in Hitler's honor. During the opera, I key in on some of the major characters and reveal their inner thoughts and a little biography to introduce and distinguish them. That's as far as I've gotten today, but here's what will happen next.
During intermission, the various "factions" will break off to gossip among themselves, so the reader can start to distinguish the various agendas within Hitler's inner circle and how they are in conflict. After the opera concludes, Goehring has arranged for a sumptuous banquet in honor of the Fuhrer in a special room in the opera house. While Hitler takes a moment to "work the rope line" with the press and the upper crust of society (remember, Hitler was ultimately a politician), the Nazi leaders make their way to the banquet room and start to mingle with each other while they wait, so now we get to see how they interact with each other outside of the Fuhrer's presence, despite (and perhaps because of) their competing agendas. Then the Fuhrer arrives, and each of the principals get to make a little speech and toast to the Fuhrer in honor of him, where the principals reveal more dimensions of their "central problems," but more subtly. Then Hitler will make a speech, showing how he tends to deal with such things, and his penchant for promising something for everybody and letting them fight things out among themselves.
That's basically it. I think the scene will probably be too long, and will probably need to be cut and/or re-worked when I edit it, but for now it will work for a first draft, and it will also help me solidify my own footing before I head further into the drama of my novel.
I admit, I have to find my own sea legs with this story, and I give myself permission to do that in the first draft. As they say, "We can fix it in the remix."
