Day Four

NaNoWriMo continues, rolling into Day Four. Did you know that of the hundreds of thousands of people who start NaNo every November, about half of them drop out after the first few days? And they do that for several reasons, not the least of which is that they didn’t realize just how much time and dedication it would take to maintain a certain solid pace throughout. Once they start getting behind their goals in those first few days the road back seems too arduous to undertake, so they drop out, and they always say they’re never going to do THAT again. Of course they are the same ones who keep coming back year after year and trying it on for size again. Eventually some of them do get over that hump, set realistic goals for each day, and achieve them slowly but surely. For those people, NaNo had become their Everest, and once they get to the top they look down and they’re pleased.

My pace is set at over 2,000 words per day, and I have achieved that over the course of the first three days. Today so far I’m at 1,155 words to this point. I will get over 2,000 once I buckle down after posting this blog entry. That’s the key for me. Grab my earbuds, put on a solid soundtrack, and just start typing. Unlike a lot of people, because I don’t have any real pre-writing ritual, I spend some time each day going back over what I’ve written so far to re-familiarize myself and to get more ideas for plot creation and focus.

So far my plot has been moving along more slowly than the novel I wrote for last year’s NaNoWriMo, but that’s the product of my storyline, which centers around two women, each with their own issues, who are destined to meet and fulfill a need in each other that they never knew they had. So, the process of setting up backgrounds and motivations for these characters, including a series of problems they need to overcome to get to where they need to be to intersect with each other is a long one. But I’m loving every second of it, because as I write their life stories down I get to know them, and they become my friends.

I’ve never really had two protagonists in any of my novels before, so finding each woman’s voice has been an entirely different exercise for me, one that keeps me editing while I’m writing, in order to capture the two distinct voices clearly and consistently. Right now, having just gone over 8,000 words total, I’m finally getting there, I’m finally getting inside of their heads and staying there.

Next goal: 9,000 words…

Sam