NaNo Update Wednesday, November 12

Well, it’s Wednesday and time for another update.

Health goals: Wow! This side of things took a hit! I went from feeling great to having full-blown bronchitis overnight. Between that and the sudden switch from summer to winter (what happened to fall??), I haven’t done any more yard work or gardening. Exercise indoors is also out until I can breathe again. So the goal for now is to just get back to normal.

Writing took a hit, too. But that’s not a real surprise considering I dove under the covers and didn’t surface again for two days.

This is also when many writers participating in NaNo hit a wall. The excitement of starting something new fades and reality about how much work this takes hits home. I admit that the last couple of days there were times when my fingers stopped on the keyboard and my brain went momentarily dead. What now? Where do my characters need to go?

A quick look at my stats page on the NaNo site looks depressing. If I were keeping a steady pace, I should be over 18K words right now, and I’m not. At the average rate that I have kept as of last night, I either won’t get to 50K until December 11 or I have to average over 1800 words a day to finish on time.

But, when I look at it from a positive perspective, everything changes. I’m at 13.7K right now. That’s almost 14,000 words into a novel that I hadn’t even started twelve days ago! My characters have been talking to me and their story is taking shape. No matter what happens from here on out, I’ve made amazing progress in a short time.

And that is wonderful!

What do you think you could accomplish in less than two weeks if you really put your mind to it?