NaNoWriMo 2018 – First 12,500 Words

Fucking whoa.

So over the first five days of NaNo, I’ve averaged 2500 words per day (and I got Vacancy out on time, so what the fricking frick?) to get me to 12,554 words at the end of the day yesterday. Can yoU BELIEVE IT?

Just a note: this story was one I came up with earlier in the year, mostly just for fun–I wasn’t ever sure I’d commit it to paper. I wrote out the first two-ish chapters just to see if it excited me a couple months ago, and it did. That’s those first 2801 words which I’m not including in my NaNo total.

The NaNo goal is 50k in 30 days, but my own personal goal this go around is 50k by the 20th which means I need to average 2500 words a day (check!) because holidays, but also because I know 50k isn’t enough for a complete novel, not this kinda anyway. That isn’t to say this will be some lofty story, it’s just more realistically going to be told in 75k – 85k words as most novels are, and I want to try and get all those words written within the 30 days.

During Camp NaNo I completed 50k words–and I felt great about it–but that was sorely short of the entire story. I lost steam at the end and didn’t finish the first draft while I was in that first draft headspace. I don’t want that to happen again.

But most of my writing is modeled in the same way as Camp NaNo: sprints and tracking all based on a very fleshed out plot. Nothing is set in stone, and this story could snake off into an entirely different direction, but it’s unlikely, and it’s a huge boon to have that outline and the scenes laid out so I can do a short review of what’s next right before starting the timer.

I went back to 10 minute sprints because I didn’t want to wear myself out at the onset (I haven’t done writing this intensively since July), and it worked. I’m up to 15 minutes again, and will probably bump it up to 20 in the next couple days and sail forward on those.

As for the story itself, I’m really into this one, but I’m concerned about character development and how a reader might connect with these guys. That’s probably because they’re not particularly complex right now and some of them–including the most important ones–are a little flat. The characters for my camp novel had bigger personalities and each had at least one overarching trait that made them unique, and if I ever got stuck writing them, I could fall back on that trait. This time the characters are more subtle, but maybe that’s just a fancy way of saying “boring.” That’s my main concern right now: get my love interests to stop being “generic boy and girl” and to start being compelling people who a reader will care about and root for.

But that’s not exactly the point of the first draft, that can come later if I can use this month to feel them out and just get their story down on paper. I find there are still times I second guess myself, but it’s a lot easier this go around to say “fuck it” and just keep slogging through. I know I can fix it later, and in fact I look forward to fixing it later because I really love editing. Some of today’s words are done, but there are still more to do. Keep on writing, everyone!