Writing continues! And it continues to amaze me that if you just keep putting one word after another, you create sentences, which create paragraphs, and all of that adds up. I am… slightly off count, but not so much that I don’t think I can get back on track. That’s what the weekend is for, right?

You’ll have to pardon the slightly late update (which I wrote and then forgot to post). Somehow I’ve been managing to work a full time job and not alienate my husband completely and occasionally have a social life and on top of all that… write a novel. All of that is somewhat astounding to me. I don’t think this breakneck pace is sustainable outside of the magical month of November, but I do feel like I might be able to continue a writing habit once NaNoWriMo ends. That feels kind of magical in and of itself.

I haven’t lost interest in this novel, which is also astounding. At the beginning, the magic of something new is keeping you going. But as you get further in, that new novel smell has started to fade, leaving you with… Yeah, ok, I got lost in that metaphor. But (spoilers!) I’ve made it halfway, and I still like the story I’m writing! Or at least, I still like this story, even if the execution is… well, it’s the quality of an extra fast first draft.

I realized early in week 2 that I needed to move my plot along a little faster than it was going. I’m sure this novel will end up being more than 50k words—as most published novels are anyway—but I’m already halfway through NaNoWriMo and I am definitely not halfway through this novel yet. But that’s all right! I’ll just keep writing, because now I’ve developed my writing habit. If I just keep stringing words together, making sentences, making paragraphs, eventually I’ll get to the end.

In week two I was less diligent about writing during my lunch breaks. Looking at some of my numbers, I do think that getting in some words earlier in the day does seem to help me stay on track, so I will probably try to do that again in week three. It’s somewhat more intimidating (and difficult) to have to write all 1600-2000 words all in one sitting. Even 300 words during my lunch, really helps ease that burden.

Day 8: 1,905 (13,919) (NaNoWriMo Goal: 13,333)
Day 9: 557 (14,476) (NaNoWriMo Goal: 15,000)
Day 10: 2,813 (17,289) (NaNoWriMo Goal: 16,667)
Day 11: 1,174 (18,463) (NaNoWriMo Goal: 18,333)
Day 12: 1,542 (20,005) (NaNoWriMo Goal: 20,000)
Day 13: 1,730 (21,735) (NaNoWriMo Goal: 21,667)
Day 14: 441 (22,146) (NaNoWriMo Goal: 23,333)

There are a few light days there. Day 9 was just a slow day. I fell asleep briefly on my iPad while writing, so I decided to call it a night without hitting the word count. Day 14 was Neil Gaiman night! Tickets for the event were purchased in the summer, so it wasn’t a writing reward. It was a pretty great night, though. And I managed to write a little—on my phone!—while in the theater waiting for the event to start, and then a little more when I got home before I went to sleep. Now we’re heading into the holiday long weekend, so I’m determined to catch up. Positive thinking!