Nanowrimo: Half Way

I've been a little bit lax the last couple of days with the Nano thing. We had a big weekend and I tried to find some time to write but it didn't turn out that way. Usually, I'd beat myself up for it and spend the next few days depressed because I couldn't be disciplined enough to get words down, but I tried something different this time around.

This time, I promised myself more treats.

And it seems to have worked. Rather than concentrating on hitting my 1,667 words/day goal, I decided that every time I cranked out another 1,000 words, I'd give myself a Wagon Wheel. It also helps that whenever I call out to Wifey that I've cracked another 1,000 words she calls back "Here comes the Wagon Wheels!" with great enthusiasm.

I've cranked out some pretty good numbers but haven't bested my current one-day high score of 2,680.

I think I'll give that a run though this weekend, but we'll see how we go.

I've just clicked over the 18k mark, which feels great. Especially when I realised that I still have so much of the story left to tell.

I'm still writing in scenes, and jumping around a bit and it still seems to be working for me. The last few days I've surprised myself by cranking out over 1,000 words each session even though I didn't think I had anything to write.

I've also been plotting (sort of) during the day - thinking about other things the characters might get up to and what other situations would logically (and sometimes illogically) follow from previous ones.

I have some great scenes coming up that I'm looking forward to writing, but I've been holding off on them so I can get started on them leading into week four. I think I have at least 20k in them alone, so the closer I can get to 30k by the end of this weekend the better.

Ideally, I want to be around 35k - not impossible but quite an ask considering I have to write as much as I have done already, but only over the next couple of days.

Reading the forums on the Nanowrimo site has been a great source of inspiration. I think it's the whole community feel of Nano that keeps me going. Writing can be pretty lonely sometimes, so when you jump onto a website and you're able to lament your lack of enthusiasm for your characters (or your very real threat of knocking them off and continuing on with another more interesting character), and you hear how others are coping, it makes you feel a little less alone in this crazy quest.

On that note, I'm off to recharge my vocabulary muscles and dream about what the cover of my nano novel will look like when it's published to great acclaim.