Time for another NaNoWriMo accountability check:
- Still writing every day. Some days I’m more enthusiastic to start than others. Some days I end a session feeling buoyed by the process, and others I just feel tired.
- As of Nov. 14, I’ve logged 13 hours and 16 minutes (still less than an hour per day drafting).
- Also as of Nov. 14, I’ve drafted 25,048 (subtract a few headers)–whaaaat. This means I’m halfway there, based on word count.
The big task in front of me right now is to work on the middle sections: the build-up to the conflict, fleshing out some of the subplots and peripheral issues that I allude to in the intro material and at the end.
I know I shouldn’t read what I’ve written but it’s tempting. This will help inform me of where I need to go next, I tell myself.
But, I know that I’ll begin to edit, to want to revise, to see the places that aren’t working so well that don’t yet have a solution. And then I’ll freeze, and there will go NaNoWriMo for me. This is fine–if for whatever reason I don’t finish NaNoWriMo, if I don’t “win” by reaching 50K words by Nov. 30, my life will not end. External obstacles may come up that totally thwart me. (I could get that phone call I’ve been dreading that informs me that a family member has passed away. This could happen at any moment, and there’s no way I’d finish if that does in fact happen.)
But, what I need to focus on is preventing internal obstacles: self-doubt, minimization, things that will keep me from continuing to put words on page. I’m pretty sure that if I start to read what I’ve drafted thus far, I won’t finish. So I’m not going to even go there. I have skimmed sections that I drafted during my last session, but often I don’t. My focus is to keep going. That’s an ongoing goal I’ll take into the third week: don’t look back, and keep going.
Gail Marie Cole 