Nanowrimo-General

Word Count: 50079

I passed over the 50K threshold Tuesday night.  After a 10K three-day weekend, I decided that I could get over the finish line in a day or so.  Monday, I wrote about 2K, and Tuesday I wrote about 3K.  You can view my stats here.  This is my third NaNoWriMo win.

I’m not done yet.

I’m a little over halfway through my (constantly changing) outline, and my target word count is 90,000.  After a day or two off, I’ll be writing about 1,000 words a day, which should let me finish The Coral Gate sometime in mid-January.

Word Count: 35,060

And now I’m in the doldrums.

The problem isn’t the story – it’s chugging along quite merrily, in fact.  Up until now, the issue has been time.  My social engagements, exercise, and work had effectively slimmed down my remaining free time to just enough to keep on pace.  On Sunday, I slipped a day behind, and through some determination (and something I’ll mention below) rebounded back to par.  Luckily, the past few days have been much less intense.

Total words: 25,163

I feel like I just had a second week 1.

I’m a third of the way into my outline at best (but probably closer to a quarter).  The usual NaNoWriMo compositional narrative runs thus: strong wind through week 1, duldrums in week 2, a slow sail back to the tradewinds in week 3, and a mad rush to the finish in week 4.  I’m still riding the strong winds.

Total: 14,065 words

Start-to-date average: 2,009 words/day

There’s always the urge to push far ahead in the first week, knowing things will get dire around week 2 or 3.  I’ve been most successful when my word counts have kept consistent below a certain threshold (usually around 2,000 words a day).  When I began Those Who Favor Fire, I was writing around 4,000 words a day, and I burned out.  Things got a bit dicey a few days ago, when I had to write 3,000 words/day so I could take Election Day off.  My brain felt like mush when I finished.

Once again, I have decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month.  This will be my fifth year participating, and an anticipated third win, should I make it to 50,000 words by December 1.

This year’s project will be The Coral Gate, a rural, modern-day fantasy set in backwoods Tennessee.  “Lily Mason and her family discover a red stone arch near a national laboratory in rural Tennessee; soon, creatures appear from the arch, and not all of them are friendly or benign.”  It’s a concept I’ve toyed with this year: writing a portal/parallel worlds fantasy that doesn’t feel like every other one out there.  I’ve also wanted to write a fantasy series that takes place around Roane County, where I spent part of my childhood and early adulthood.