NaNoWriMo Update

Back on November 1st, I blogged about my participation in National Novel Writing Month and promised to update Novel Spaces readers on my progress. I'm happy to report that I'm halfway through this crazy experience and haven't lost my mind...yet.

All kidding aside, I've found NaNoWriMo to be a great motivator. From comparing my word count to those of my online writing buddies, to meeting some very cool folks at local Write-Ins here in Austin. It's great knowing that, despite the differences in our writing levels (participants range from hobbyist to full-time published authors), we all have one common goal: to complete our novels by 11:59 p.m. on November 30th.

NaNoWriMo has been eye-opening, to say the least, and during the course of these first couple of weeks, I've discovered some very interesting things:

1. I have been selling myself way short when it comes to how much I can comfortably write during a single day. If I put my mind to it, I can write 4,000 to 5,000 words a day, everyday.

2. It's okay to write a really crappy first draft, because it can always be rewritten. In fact, I'm already thinking about what it will take to fix my NaNoWriMo book.

3. My internal editor has a really loud voice. Despite my acknowledgment of the acceptability of the crappy first draft, it is still hard for me to embrace it. I'm sure I would be even closer to my goal if I could stop going back and tweaking sentences here and there.

I'm confident that I will reach NaNoWriMo's 50,000 word count goal by the end of the month. Even though I've been sidetracked by several out of town trips, and unexpected work that was due on one of my contracted novels, as of last night, I was at 31,989 words. Reaching 50,000 words should be a piece of cake, right? Only time will tell.

Come back on December 1st when I'll report my final NaNoWriMo word count and share tips on how to write through the holiday season. If you're interested, you can follow my progress on my NaNoWriMo page.