NaNoWriMo Week 3 thoughts

End of week 3 of NaNoWriMo, and I can say something I've never said before about this:

I won. :D

Indeed, I had a good plan, stuck to it for the most part, and was able to write every single day. Some days, many days, I was able to write a lot more than the minimum to keep up, some days not quite as much. The key thing I've learned so far is to keep at it. Maintain the daily focus to write, even just a few hundred words, and that makes all the difference between an idea for a story, and an actual story.

I'm not finished yet. This novel still has two scenes that I haven't yet written at all, so there's work there to do yet, and a couple of the scenes I have written still need additional fleshing out in order to work right. But the vast majority of the story is there. There are important characters who died, loved, and lost. But in the end, it is all for the best.

Now comes what will probably be the harder part: revising it! Editing, I suspect, will take twice as long as did the writing part, and frankly that's okay. It is absolutely an illusion that writing flows from an author's pen or fingertips as effortlessly as sunlight streams through windswept leaves. It sucks, first. Then after being reviewed and edited, it sucks less. Then after being reviewed and edited more, it sucks even less. Et cetera, ad infinitum. Well, not quite, eventually the story either starts to really shine, or it maybe is set aside for something else. In any case, it is hard work, contrary to the romantic illusion.

Stats for the week:

Weekly word count: 14,053

Weekly average/day: 2,008

Total for month: 51,436

(totals are slightly different on the graphic because of the way NaNoWriMo's counter counts words, vs. how Scrivener counts them.)

Last Week's Goal Updates:

I did kill two, in fact I killed four characters (two important ones, two minor ones). Space combat is dangerous, what can I tell ya? I also did write every single day last week.

This Week's Goal Updates:

This week, I want to maintain the momentum of writing daily. I may not write as much in this work, even though I still have work to do, but I also have a freelance gig writing for another blog (details when blogs are published) so I'll also be doing that. Daily writing, of some kind, that's the goal.

Editing I am still going to wait on; I want to get all of the entire work out first. December & January seem like ideal times for that!

I'm still on track to hit 60k for the month, which would be a nice round figure—as well as a great foundation, from which to cull the best story possible.