The Words: 5419 today.

I more than made up for yesterday’s shorter word count. After midnight last night, I wrote for another hour, trying to salvage the night’s writing, even if it counted for the next day. That got me about 2500 words. Then from around 10:30 to 11:30, I did a few sprints with @NaNoWordSprints and even wrote in between.

I’m getting more and more excited about this story. It’s funny, because on Nov. 13th, I gave myself the badge that says I had a eureka moment.

I thought that filling out the middle of the novel (and adding more words to a somewhat short novel) by showing one of the MCs in her home environment (which was then part of a more important moment) was a big “Aha!” moment.

Then, on the 25th, I had the defining “Aha!” moment of this novel, in which I realized what I was really writing. (I won’t explain it again, but go here if you want to read about it–it’s near the bottom of the post.) Then I had to change course with the climax and conclusion of the story.

I kept thinking I needed to sit down with a notebook and write out some new ideas for those things. I thought I was going to outline the last few scenes of the book. I cannot stress this enough–I have never done well as a pantser. However, I never got around to doing any of that planning, but kept having to come back to my writing without any more idea of what was going to happen.

The discovery and smaller “Aha!” moments that have come out of that writing have been amazing! Don’t get me wrong–a lot of it is going to need some serious work. I wrote several scenes that I later had to mark for deletion and wrote something else when I realized it needed to go a different way. But I think I am on the right track now, and I am hoping I will have time to finish the draft tomorrow. (I’m past the climax, but I don’t know how long the conclusion will end up being.)

The Story: Clark got himself into a bit of trouble and was taken to the king, who fortunately knows enough about what’s going on to trust him when he says he has a story to tell him. But first, they have to go somewhere safe.

Total word count: 81,967

Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already: 2018 – November 29th

The Words: 3490 today.

I set my goal for today at 3000 words again. I did a few word wars with people from my region on Slack first. My word count went down with every sprint we did. I had gone from smooth-flowing dialog into…a love scene. I enjoy romantic scenes (to a degree), but I have a harder time being quick with them.

Then I did some sprints with the @NaNoWordSprints feed on Twitter. I basically told myself to worry less about the emotion in the scene and more about getting through it more quickly. I sped up a little, but mostly it just helped when I got past that part.

The Story: The king and prince finished a somewhat heated conversation with Nathan and Clark. They also offered one of them a job, which I’m not even sure myself if he’ll take, because I didn’t even think of this until today’s writing.

Then we go back to “present” time and the king and prince go back to the capital city.  Events have been set in motion that have ramifications to the entire world!

That may sound very dramatic, but I just realized something unbelievable last night, which probably won’t make sense to anyone except for me. For a long time, I’ve known a huge secret about this world that none of my characters knew. But one of my characters was always destined to blow the lid off that secret, in what I have come to realize will likely be a trilogy of books within the greater series. I have written book 1, but have been unable to pin down what book 2 would entail. Last night, I realized that this might just be book 2! And I am both excited and a little nervous about this understanding. A lot more thinking and brainstorming will have to go into figuring this out. But that is a job for after NaNo.

Total word count: 72,229

Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already: 2018 – November 26th