NaNoWriMo: Week 3 Update

Is it already week three? Wow! I’m even getting later with writing these updates.

As it turns out, my preparations earlier this month with the whole “write 2,000 words a day” have borne fruit. I’ve been able to maintain par with NaNo’s recommended word count, and I haven’t had to write as much to do it. And I haven’t been writing as much lately, truth be told. I haven’t quite burned out yet, but the words have been harder to come, the plot harder to conceptualize, and I’ve had to force myself to write before I do x thing. (Reward systems really do go a long way.)

On Day 21, I had 35,782 words, just a little over the recommended word count of 35,000. And hey, I’ll take it! My current total is 36,950, and I haven’t been able to write today yet due to Thanksgiving shenanigans, but family has now left and the rest of the night is free. I actually get more energized if I think less in terms of how much I’ve written and more in terms of how many words I have to go (13,050!).

Currently, I have no idea where the plot of my novel is going. I know where I want it to go, but this word count challenge has allowed it to take many surprising turns and I’m using characters in ways I didn’t expect. I’m starting to see what works and what doesn’t in terms of pacing and side plots, but I don’t think I’ll get the full picture until the novel is finished and I go back for rewrites.

I’ve been trying to do some write-ins and word sprints when I can, but so far I haven’t done any this week. Hope to change that by the weekend. I hope also to solve a sort of writer’s flaw that I’ve noticed in myself. I tend to write scenes that only focus on two characters at a time, no more than that. Am I scared of writing more characters in a scene? Do I have some sort of fear that I can’t juggle them all, or am I just thinking too small? I think for my next week, I’m going to try to do more scenes involving larger groups of characters.

How are you guys doing? Have you noticed any tendencies you have that you want to improve? What are you excelling at?

We’re in the home stretch, y’all! Keep going!