There's a saboteur in my midst!

A funny thing happened to me last night and into today - one of the characters in my novel suddenly became very real to me, despite the fact that I'm still just figuring out who she is. I expected that to happen (creating characters has never been my weak point), but I didn't expect this particular character to take off this soon. It suggests that I will be able to use her a lot more in the plot that I had originally planned. I like that idea!

Oh, and lest I forget to report the daily stats, I wrote 585 words last night, despite a headache. This brings my total up to 2135.

And I've now got a whopping 2% of my first draft written! Yay, me!

I have lofty ambitions for the my weekend productivity: I want to write 1,000 words each on Saturday and Sunday. Think I can do it? I do.

So now we come to this bit of insight into my twisted mind. The story is really coming alive to me now - I'm having fun writing the characters, they are becoming real to me, and I'm really digging the process and feeling extremely positive about the novel. But when I read what I've written, I have this knee-jerk sensation of "oh, this is crap." Now, objectively, I don't think it's crap. I think it's pretty good for the first ten pages of a first draft. I believe in my writing ability and I know that I wouldn't be feeling so positive about the project if what I'm writing really were crap. Why, then, is some part of me so desperate to make me believe that it is?

Maybe it's because my inner self-saboteur is scared to death that I might actually succeed this time. Sorry to disappoint you, chicita. I'm doing this.