NaNoWriMo is officially halfway done (omg), so I thought I’d write a mid-month post to check in and see how everyone’s been doing so far:
Liz: Well, we’re halfway through the month now, and it has been an interesting two weeks, to say the least. Despite knowing the difficulties that lay ahead of me going in, this has been slightly more of a challenge than I had anticipated. I had made plans to write at the same time every day for an hour or two, but despite my best efforts, I found that I still ended up writing at fairly random intervals.
Although I do not expect to finish rewriting my novel by the end of this month, I am happy with the progress I have made, having finished a little over 11,000 words so far. Despite not achieving my objective regarding word count, I have made significant improvements to my story, and that is really the ultimate goal. My plot, which I always regarded as being a bit cliché, has changed drastically, and for the better. I am stubborn, however, and will strive to stick to my original plan as best I can for the remainder of the month. Onwards and upwards!
Anushka: This has turned out to be harder than I expected. While I met the word count on the first day, the very next day I was a little bit short. I made up for it in my third day by exceeding the average word count. After that... well, after that it was a bit of a mess. I didn't realise just how difficult writing 1,700 words a day is when you're stuck on your plot. Busy weekends and elections certainly do NOT help. However, I’ve got to say, the competition has really been an amazing motivation for me. While I'm still behind on my words (apparently I now need to write more than 2000 words a day to catch up) I've at least been sitting down every day to write just enough to beat my friends. I now have 15k+ words, when the highest any of my friends has is 14k. Not that I'm bragging. I'm excited to see how the rest of the month goes, especially since I'm officially out of scenes to rewrite, and now have several blank pages staring at me, waiting to be filled up with new words and brand new scenes. Horrifying.
Deimosa: I am not surprised at my slow start this month. Obsessively reading and watching the news in the days leading up to the election, I barely wrote anything. But I am focused now and listening to music on the train while writing. Interestingly, fast music increases my writing pace/productivity just as increases my pace when I’m running. In college, I always listened to Biggie’s double CD Life After Death at TOP volume while writing papers, and that pace got me one page every 15-20 minutes. That way, I could complete the first draft of an 8-10 page paper in 2-3 hours. Fast forward to this past week and I have been handwriting my novel, blasting the new album from A Tribe Called Quest – We Got It From Here, Thank You for Your Service – and creating a matrilineal society that lives in a biodome on Mars.
Photos courtesy of author
