Today marks two weeks since the beginning of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). This week was slightly smoother than week one. I kept a relatively solid pace throughout the week. I’ve realized with everything going on in my life that Sunday is the one day I continue to struggle finding time to write. I have been able to make up the word count throughout the week so it’s not setting me behind too much.
NaNoWriMo has some fun statistics when you enter your word count each day. It has identified that I am a night owl and I do most of my writing late at night. I don’t think that comes as a surprise to anyone who knows me. The daily goal is set to 1,667 words per day to complete a 50,000 word novel in a month. I am slightly ahead of that pace averaging 1,976 words. A total word count is cool and all but I am not sure whether the quantity I have written is of any quality. After each writing session I still question whether what I wrote is going to work or if I will end up re-writing that section again once I get further along.
That brings me to the next point. They say the goal for this month is just to get words on paper. Don’t stop to edit or re-read what you wrote just let the creativity flow. That sounds good on paper but it’s definitely not a comfortable way for me to write. As I get a few days in I think of things that I should have written earlier or want to go back and add now breaking my concentration and adding yet another distraction.
The one positive thing about NaNoWriMo is it has gotten me into a routine of carving time out of my day to write. That has been very therapeutic in that I now have a time-boxed window that I am allowing myself to be creative and stop thinking about the everyday troubles of life and be whisked away to a place that is spontaneous and the only rules are those I make. And this is a lot less expensive than therapy.
Overall through day 13 I have written 25,689 words broken down into 11 sections. Notice I said sections and not chapters. The flow and organization of the book are still extremely fluid and despite what I said above I have rewritten the prologue four times and it’s still a mess. I’m starting to think it will be the last bit of writing that I will do. The word count goal through 13 days was 21,671 which puts me almost 2.5 days ahead. According to the NaNoWriMo stats page I should be finished November 25th with my current pace. That would be nice since I would not have to worry about writing over the Thanksgiving holiday. We’ll see how things go over the next week. My personal goal is to break 30,000 words by this weekend so I will need to put in some extra effort to make that happen.
Overall, this has still been a positive experience and one I enjoy more and more each day. My attitude may change if life gets in the way and I end up missing a few days and am behind schedule. My family has been very supportive during this but have commented that it will be nice when I am not locked down in my office writing every night. Yet another part of being a writer I had not anticipated.
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