I did it!

I pushed myself the last week and wrote 8,727 words in the last six days alone, and validated my count last night at 25,070 words written in the month of April. That’s 25k words on this rewrite, and I am so pleased to have gotten this far so quickly.

Of course, the work still isn’t done. As I texted a friend who was helping me stay on track: Now I get to… keep going… But I’m actually looking forward to that. I’m looking forward to continuing this story; there’s still tons of cool stuff that hasn’t happened yet! Things I’m looking forward to writing. And I’m looking forward to eventually finishing this draft. That’s the most exciting thing I still have to look forward to.

Things I learned this Camp NaNoWriMo:

1. I’m still struggling with descriptions. Sometimes I remember to go back and add those descriptions, but not always. I’ve already made a note to myself that this is something to watch for and add where needed when I’m doing edits on this draft later on.
2. I also struggle with putting my protagonists against each other. I struggle to write that sort of tension—between two of my protagonists who may not entirely get along for whatever reason—in a way I don’t struggle with when pitting my protagonists against my antagonists. I don’t feel like I’ve quite nailed it in this draft, so that’s also something that I’ll work on when I’m doing edits later.
3. Sometimes you have to give your brain a break. And that’s part of the writing process too. Look, brains make basically no sense. They’re our greatest tools, but sometimes tools break or get dull or otherwise need some repairs or need to spend some time not in use. What I’m saying is, don’t break your brain by forcing it to keep going when it needs a rest. You won’t be doing your brain or your novel any good. (Caveat: Yes, obviously sometimes you do have to push past mental blocks or other mental nonsense that keeps you from writing. Knowing when it’s just a block and when it’s really time to take a break is probably a skill we could all develop and hone.)

• Final Word Count: 25,070/25,000

I’m already planning on doing July Camp NaNoWriMo as well, and will set my goal at 25k words. (And yes, you can expect me to blog about it again, I hope you’re not getting tired of reading about NaNoWriMo and my experiences with it.) I expect that in May and June my writing will slow down a little bit, but I would really like to write 30k words in those two months combined (about 15k words per month). That would bring my novel to an even 80k words, which is my goal for this draft.

So now, onwards!