NaNoWriMo: Week 2 Update

Hoo boy, I’m a little late with this, but that’s okay!

How’s everyone doing on week two, going into week three? I’ve managed 28,528 words for the month so far (65,631 words total for the overall project), so I’m about on par for where I need to be for today, November 17th. I’m actually about to sit down and try to get a lot of words on the page to make up for lost time.

Truth is, I slacked off a little bit this week, for a few reasons. By trying to reach the 2,000 word count every day, I felt myself approaching burnout, so I pulled back to save myself later pain. I also got a little sleep deprived here and there, and instead of forcing the writing to come, I elected to get rest which was usually a great choice because the next day, I got in double my word count. The third thing for not writing as much as I wanted is that I got myself addicted to a book series and spent a lot more time reading that than writing. (Oops, but not really. I’ve been having fun.)

But I’m still on track, and I’ve got a whole weekend to get words onto the page. Once again, word sprints and setting time limits and word count goals for myself has helped me immensely. Jennifer and I finished our last recorded word sprint for Femme Trash this week, but we have more planned for this month and the future off-record. Super excited for those!

So far I’ve been struggling a lot with timing. Should this be described there? Should this character say this now or wait? Am I introducing this plot point in the right place? Is it too soon or too late? Are these side plots really necessary, or are they cluttering the work? Should this really be written as a duology as originally planned, or should it be a stand-alone, and if so, where should it end? What do I need to keep and what needs to be rewritten or sacrificed altogether to make it work?

I’m not trying to answer those questions now. They’ve just been batting around in my head as I go. I’m hoping things will get clearer once I actually approach the end of the novel, if not at the end of NaNoWriMo. The revision phase is something I’m greatly looking forward to, and each day I find myself a little closer to it, the more giddy I get.

What have you guys been struggling with? What’s something in your novel that you’ve been looking forward to the most?