Right, I'd forgotten how hard it is to do NaNo and have a proper social life. This week, I managed to do both, but there was one moment when I was sitting at home thinking "Ah, everything is sorted, now I just have half an hour to relax before my friend comes over for dinner... gah! I haven't written a single word today!" which resulted in some frantic exposition writing that any good editor would throw out immediately, but that kept me on par for that day.
For that is where I've been trying to stay: on the recommended word count. So far, I've managed, staying ahead just a couple of hundred words each day (par word count in brackets):
Day 6: 10,640 (10, 000)
Day 7: 12,546 (11,667)
Day 8: 13,503 (13,333)
Day 9: 15,178 (15,000)
Day 10: 16,930 (16,667)
As you can see, the frantic writing described above was Day 8, where I cashed in on the progress I'd made on Day 7. Ah well, I'm still hanging in there.
What about the story? Yes, well, week 2 is generally known as Hell Week, and I've experienced a little of that, although not too much. This is the week in which your story starts to stink, and you can't really see the point of writing it anymore; it's stupid, it's badly written, and why did you pick this awful plot and these unimaginative characters anyway? I had some of that, mostly because I hit the point up until which I'd actually thought out my plot. So I just wrote lots of backstory on my characters, and dialogue which mainly involved them discussing insane subjects (again, stuff any proper editor would remove with the stroke of a pen) until I'd gotten a better idea on what was going to happen. I remembered what it was I'm actually trying to write, and that gave me some pointers, so I think the plot will be moving forward at speed from now on again.
As always, there are characters I like, and some I like less. They have all surprised me, with backstories and motivations and personalities I didn't think up before I started writing. Where does this stuff come from, I wonder? The mousy little girl from the poor village turns out to be the smartest one in the group, whereas the sly, plotting courtier turns out to have a heart after all. Who knew?
So today is my last day before going on holiday (yes, somehow I always end up planning a vacation in November), which will not only involve frantic writing but mostly frantic finishing up of work things and frantic packing. Of course, I'll bring my laptop along for the trip, and I'll plan in an hour of writing time each day. Yesterday, I wrote exactly 1,000 words in less than 30 minutes, so with one hour each day I should be able to (finally!) comfortably pull away from par. If all goes according to plan, that is...
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