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25,118 Words, 19 days in.

That’s nearly 13,000 words behind my 2000/day word goal, but only 6,555 behind the NaNo goal of 1667/day.  So a couple of stellar writing days and I should be back on track.

I bet you expected I'd fall off the wagon.  Oh, you know me so well.  I refuse to quit, though.  Still being dragged along by a tether, battered but furously kicking my legs to get back on my feet.   

As for the story, it continues to travel places I hadn’t anticipated.  Some of the paths are predictable and not very interesting, but some of them are new and full of potential.  I’m really looking forward to getting this thing written, letting it simmer for a couple of months then working through the editing process.

It looks like I’ll be packing the AlphaSmart NEO with me on our trip to Florida.  Did I purposely sabotage my efforts to get ahead just so that I’d have an excuse to stay in and write while Chuck and the boys entertain my in-laws?

That's mean.  Stop it.

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16,984 words.

How many books have you read or movies have you watched with a critical eye, pointing out the problems and saying, “I could have done a better job than that"?  You know, it’s really not as easy as it looks.

What started for me as an idea and, for the first several days, seemed to be taking shape with little effort has morphed into a sluggish, droll blur of words strung into sentences that bear so little resemblance to anything readable that I’m embarrassed to even open the file and continue.

Is mid-novel too late to outline?  I think I need an outline.

I added a character today – a new guy - because my main character needs more depth.  I mean, she is who the story is all about, but she is the person to whom I’ve really paid the least attention.  She needs a life – especially if I’m going to make a reader care that she loses it.  This new guy promises me he’ll not be a minor player in this adventure.  He likes to be the center of attention; or, at least as close as he can get.

So, I continue.

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11,497. 

Do novelists really count their words every day?  I doubt it.  Unless you're writing an article or short-story for publication, where word count is a key consideration, keeping a tally of words is a silly way to measure the quality of a story.

Of course, NaNo is different.  NaNo is all about word count and process over product.  It's been said that it takes about a month of repetition for a behavior to become habit.  One of the purposes of NaNo is to encourage wanna be writers into the habit of writing.

If you can keep up a pace of 1600-2000 words a day for 30 days, preferably blocking the same set of hours each day, then writing will become habit.  The habit of daily practice will improve your writing.

Today I closed with a NaNo word count of 11,497.  This last 2000 words were really tough to pry out.  I had many distractions; I lost direction.  Today was a heavy dialogue day, which I find extremely difficult to write, especially because my inner critic is so adamant that I'll never live up to my expectations.  My mind wandered over to chores that need to be done.  Papers that should be filed.  My fingernails that need trimming.  Anything but scraping together that next line of dialogue.

The results are painfully unspectacular.

Despite the rough day, I will carry on, even laughing at what I've written because if I believed these words were the end and the best I could do, I'd surrender to my inner critic and cry.

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Today was another good writing day despite the fact that Chris decided to set his alarm for 4:30 AM so he could be awake while I'm writing.  Though I love his company, his 9 year-old's propensity towards chatter didn't help my focus.  Still, today I worked on character development and can see tension building between some of them.  Tension is good.  Essential, in fact.

9238 words, by the official NaNo count.  And Chris is asleep on the sofa next to me. 

Over the past couple of years I've been reading more fiction and trying to focus through a writer's eye.  Expert use of well developed plot lines with clever, unexpected twists and sub-plots has always amazed - and intimidated - me.  How do you outline all the little nuances of a story?

I suppose there are writers who do.  Some who know their characters so well before they start a project that they know exactly how the story will begin, end, and foresee all the action in the middle.

Not me; at least, not yet.  I think I finally understand, on a large scale, the concept of layering.  For a scattered, somewhat ADD type like me, layering might just help make the leap between a finished project and the apprehension of starting one.

I'm thinking, too, that sub-plots will kind of take care of themselves.  9200 ~ words in to my story, I can see several areas of conflict, tension, and intersections between my characters that, I hope, will make this a proverbial page-turner.

Enjoying the ride!

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