‘Twas the week before Thanksgiving and all over the world, the NaNo-ers were scurrying to 40K words. It’s about time for everyone to be in a huge rush to finish as much as possible before Thanksgiving. I know I am! I’ll be taking my laptop with me to visit family in California, but I still want to stay ahead. Here’s how it’s been going.
Day 17: Nothing
Day 18: 1 hour
Day 19: 30 minutes
Day 20: Nothing (Hunger Games movie!)
Day 21: Nothing
Day 22: 1.5 hours
Day 23: 30 minutes
Yes, a little spotty. I’ve been lagging a bit in my school work so this has taken a bit of a back seat to school so that I can be caught up before leaving town. My strategy has been to make up for days missed, but not to let myself ‘get ahead’ of time I will do in the future. I’m not sure this makes sense. Let’s say on Wednesday I did 1 hour even though I wasn’t behind. I can’t apply the extra 30 minutes to Thursday. It’s to make myself establish a habit more. I think it’s going okay.
If I were keeping a NaNo word count, I would fail. I started with 7K words or so and I’m now just over 30K which means I cheated and I’m behind. But I’m using time spent doing research and time looking through notes because that’s part of the editing process that I didn’t do much about when Ii wrote the first time. I feel like I’m making huge progress and I’m starting to like my book a bit more. I talked to my writing group about this book and it’s the type of book I would read, but it’s not what I want to write. I want to say something in the books I write, mainly toward a YA audience and it’s not the same message I want to receive in a book I read. It puts me in a weird place now where I’m trying to write something I’d like to read and struggling with it. Ugh.
How’s your NaNo? Are you traditional or a rebel like me? I hope you’re enjoying the process as much as I am!
Until next time, write on.
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