Nailed it!

On the last day of NaNoWriMo I turned out two chapters for a total of 5200 words. This put me over 100,000 words for the month of November. I had six days in which I wrote nothing, so I did 100,000 words in 24 days

I believe I have another 30,000 words I need to do to finish the book.

There’s a lot I learned from doing this, and it’s very important stuff. First, and perhaps the most important, I managed to get back into a groove I’ve not hit in a long time. There’s no reason that I should have been questioning my ability to do this job. Even though I’ve had some novels turn out to be difficult, I’ve also done a bunch of shorter work that’s pretty darned good. Once I got into the story and had things progress to the point where the story took on its own momentum, the nature of the work shifted. Instead of having to force myself to start writing, I had to stop myself from continuing. All the normal sorts of kinks that go into stories came along as I am used to, and that is a lot of fun.

It makes the work worth doing.

Second, and equally as vital, I realized that I need, like any other writer, just to stick my butt in a chair and turn out words. Because I can work quickly, I’ve all too often allowed myself to not do work, and figure I can catch up later. The fact that I can, however, is not a reason to do that. It is just better to cruise along and sprint when I need to rather than remaining idle and really having to push. Why? Because inertia applies to stories, too. When you have the story on simmer, it’s much easier to push things along.

Third, there are lots of little tricks that can provide content, but one of the better ones is one I’ve learned through writing scripts with Brian Pulido. We’ve gone through scripts and made sure that each scene has a shift in energy. If the last scene was an upper, we add a downer. In a novel it’s not quite that simple, but the important thing is that there is something going on with the energy. If you don’t have energy and emotion in a chapter, it’s just a recitation of facts. While a lot of that can be layered in during a second draft, challenging yourself to do it the first time out is a good way to make the book scream.

A chapter a day, just 2500 words, is not that much. If I can hit that from this point forward, it’s a novel every 40 days. (Okay, every 60 days for these big books.) That fills up my morning, and leaves me the afternoon for editing or planning or working on other material.

And, fourth, writing makes me happy. I actually enjoy doing this stuff, and it’s good to be having fun at it again. More ideas flow, more possibilities open up, and that means there’s a very bright future looming ahead of me.

November Word Count: Hard: 100202 Soft: 19192