NaNoWriMo Week 2 – Halfway There

I think the one thing I’ve learned from two weeks of NaNoWriMo is that I can’t do all my writing in one sitting. While it wasn’t unusual for me, pre-NaNo, to just do one actual writing session for the day, it’s really hard to do that every single day for NaNo. In the past, even if I was writing multiple sessions, I would only do one project per session, or I would write for two hours, dividing my writing among two to three different projects and ensuring I got a word count of 1,500 (which is about 200 less than the NaNo requirement). I said last week that the hardest part was writing 1,700 words on a single project. With NaNo, I’ve found that I’ve planned to write my words over multiple sessions, usually one in the morning and one in the evening. It makes me feel less stressed as I stare at the screen.

I think, for me, NaNo has been good at getting me to push myself on a single project. I always kind of rolled my eyes at writers would decry how they were blocked or couldn’t write. And, truth is, I’m a hypocrite. I’ve had that problem, but never considered it a problem, because I just worked on something else. Eventually, in order to finish the book, I’d have to push through the section that was giving me trouble. But, I could delay and defer it by writing other stuff, stuff that was firing on all cylinders. Whilst I worked on the other stuff, my brain would work out the kinks in the difficult project.

With NaNoWriMo, I’m having to simply work out the difficulties, and write through them. This results in some writing that’s not great. But, the good news is, it’s not awful writing. It’s serviceable writing that will have to be cleaned up in the editing process. The other thing about NaNo, at least for me, is I picked a project I was stalled on. I think that’s making it harder, because I didn’t come at it with fire. It’s the end of my three-part series, my virus book.But, I’m feeling a little stagnated on how I want these characters to get to the end of their journey. That’s making it harder. I said to myself, “Do this for NaNo, and at least you’ll be done with it.” But I’m not sure that’s the best place, emotionally, to start a project at.

Nonetheless, doing NaNo has forced me to think about this book more than I had and plan for its writing. It’s forced me to write on it even when I don’t want to. This sort of goes against other advice I’ve heard, and even given out–which is to write only what you’re excited about. I guess the question is, can you manufacture excitement? I know there have been some days when I’ve sat down to write, my mind knowing I’m going to have to slog through it, and then suddenly, I hit a part of the scene that turns exciting and pulls me in and I have no trouble knocking out the word count. There are other days, when I start, and check the word count (100), and check the word count (213), and check the word count (326), and check the word count (394) and it just barely inches up and I know it’s going to be one of those days.

So, for those who are doing NaNo, we’re at the halfway point. How’s it going for you?

My Week 2 Stats
Nov. 8   – 1,878
Nov. 9   – 1,900
Nov. 10 – 1,690
Nov. 11  – 2,178
Nov. 12 – 1,965
Nov. 13 – 1,249
Nov. 14 – 1,885
——————–
Week 2 total – 12,745
Week 1 total – 13,075
———————-
Total Nano – 25,820