Monday, November 11, 2013

NaNoWriMo: Week 1


"Wait, wait," I can hear you say. "This is the 11th. Week one of National Novel Writing Month passed a few days ago."

Indeed it did, Dear Reader. You are as perceptive as ever.

However, your humble scrivener didn't start putting pen to pape... um, digital letters to screen until the 4th. So I've been at it a week. In that week, I've written 10,404 words, with about half of that total coming in the last two days. My productivity, you might say, is on the uptick.

You might also say I'm behind the curve (I should be over 16,000 by the end of day 10) and unlikely to finish. That would be uncharitable of you.

This is where NaNoWriMo shows its value, in my opinion: shaming me into writing more. I missed the first few days. Now I have to do a higher average per day to hit the goal of 50,000 words in 30 days. Despite the occasional hairy eyeball from my wife (happy anniversary, baby! <3), I'm determined to get this book finished. NaNoWriMo had compelled me to write, and write in volume, when I might have otherwise slacked off. That's valuable. That's worth something. It's one of the reasons I donate every year.

When finished, this will be the seventh mystery in my series. Yes, I need to look into publishing them, either thru a publisher or by myself. I resolve to do that when I've finished the first draft of this book. There's something else NaNoWriMo has pushed me to do.

If you're doing NaNo this year, for the first time or the tenth, good luck. If you're not, look into it. It's good for getting you on a routine.

"Tom, you just wrote a few hundred words here," you might be saying. "They could have gone toward your book's word count." You are correct again, Dear Reader.

This time, however, I won't reply. That would be uncharitable.

Happy writing.

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