NaNoWriMo2019:
Check-in
If you aren't sure what #NaNoWriMo is, please check out my previous post about it: here. Okay, time to check in fellow authors. Where are we on our NaNoWriMo goals? Yes, we're supposed to hit 50k, but most of us have jobs or children or both to take care of. Mentally, I prepared myself to get 35k done. At this point I should have 17,500 done. How has it gone, you ask?
I started writing the novel at 18k, but I will be excluding that from my NaNo count to follow the rules. It's a sequel, so when I finished the last book, I kept it going to flesh out a bit of my conflicts so that I was sure that I planted seeds in the previous book for them. It's part of my continuity method as I am not really a plotter. Outlines feel confining and are largely ignored by me. Aside from the general conflicts set up and the first few chapters down, I had an ending. My brain works off inspiration, not organization, so I never write in order or start to finish. I jump around where inspiration takes me. I had a great visualization of how I wanted the book to end.
Going into NaNo, I had no idea how the start would get to the end except for a few things I needed to happen strategically: my main characters would have to be divided up somehow for the end to come about. I would need to pull together all loose ends before the ending I wrote since it is book 3 of a trilogy. I would have 3 villains each dispatched by the end. These were things set up in my mind that built from the other two books. This is the extent of my plotting, as I'm a pantser at heart.
I started off extremely well. The first 6 days I logged in with 2,000 or more, having a great day of 6,500. Grading got in the way here and there, so there were days off. On Nov. 10th I had 22,000 in the bank, which was absolutely astounding and incredible. Considering I was grading 4/10 days and was sick, this was amazing. I logged in at the halfway point on November 15th with 32,089 words to be exact. Will I make it to my 35k? For sure. Will I make it to 50k by the 22nd? (my NaNoWriMo2019 ends early as I get research papers to grade). Only time will tell. No matter what, this experience every year is worth it just to get motivated and to write a big chunk of my book.
What are you word counts?