The Words: 3574 written today. Yesterday, I had planned to write 5000 today, and reach 50k tomorrow with another 5000. That didn’t happen, obviously. But it’s okay, because I decided partway through the day that it wasn’t worth pushing myself for. Why would I? I’ve been saying all month that it’s not so much about the word count as it is the story itself. My goal for this month is not simply to reach 50k, it’s to have a finished novel. I’m so far away from that right now, it might take me another 50k just to have an idea of where the end will even be. But if I stress over it, I know it will only make my writing that much slower and more dreaded. So I have to allow myself days like today–I didn’t write after midnight last night, I didn’t have a chance to get to it during the afternoon, I hadn’t written 1 word for today before 9:30 pm when I finally sat down to write. So if I don’t make a pre-determined far-higher-than-daily-minimum goal on a day like that…oh well.

The Story: Lex has taken a huge leap now. He has forsaken all logic, sanity, and safety in pursuit of his end goal. Right now, though, he may have lost sight of that end goal. Now, he just seems determined to become a more advanced fighter. Sure, he says it’s so he can go in search of answers, but that’s not necessarily what his inner thoughts say. Meanwhile, he’s dragging his upstanding, God-following partner along for the ride, and she has no idea of the highly illegal thing he’s done. He’s determined not to outright lie to her, but he is about to tell her only what he thinks he has to, in order to get her to go along with his plan. Lex is definitely the kind of person who is willing to bend the rules and his moral code, as a means to an end.

Total word count: 44847

The Words: 3607 written today. I went to bed early last night so I could get up early in the morning. I managed to squeeze in 800 words after midnight, before bed. Then I was busy most of the day. In anticipation of that, and with 12,000 words left to write, I had already decided that if I could just get 2000 words in today, I could possibly finish the rest with two 5000-word days. I had about half an hour to write in the afternoon, and wrote about 1800 during that time. I was settled with that, if need be. Then at 11 pm, I found myself free, and I saw some people in my region’s Skype group were about to do a word war. I ran around getting ready (into warm, comfy clothes, water bottle, laptop ready) and joined in on 2 word wars, thus reaching the number you see above. I’m very sleepy now and not sure if I can do my head-start writing before bed. Even if I did, it may not make sense.

The Story: Lex spent most of today’s words in a half-baked, crazy scheme to find some answers. He put himself and his friend in danger and was very upset by the lack of results. At the end of my writing, he was playing with a very dangerous object that he has no reason to think won’t kill him if he uses. Still, he sees it as a possible means to an end, and he’s nothing if not obsessive. He has to accomplish his task, no matter the cost. So we’ll see where this takes him.

Total word count: 41273

The Words: 5237 written today. I did something completely different today, and I’m still not sure how I feel about it. I had a terrible backlog of dishes to get done today, and I knew it would take a while. I didn’t get to it until the time of day that I’m usually trying to get in a thousand or so words before supper. So I loaded up Audacity, put on my wireless headset, and basically told my story while doing dishes. I recorded for 45 minutes, with a few small gaps here or there where I was distracted by something else, or where I had to rush off to check my outline for what was next (the plot really got flowing today). I had no way of knowing how much I’d written, but it felt like it could be 1000 words or so. Then, after putting the little one to bed, I set out to listen to myself and type the words out. I did not realize what a task that would be. What took me 45 minutes to say took an hour and a half to type. It took up all of my evening writing time. Fortunately, it ended up being 4372 words! I can’t believe I talked that much…

The Story: The plot of the story finally took off today. Alexander has finally stumbled across the questionable item that points toward a discrepancy in the report of his dad’s death. Though for now, it’s simply a curiosity, Alexander is determined to investigate. He may have to disturb several forty-year-old men, but he will find out what his dad was up to in his final days. He is officially off on his quest, and already outline pages are going faster.

Total word count: 32621

The Words: 5322 written today. I think today was the first time I really considered just staying at the daily minimum. I hit 1667 before supper, and was finding the idea of writing more later just…unpleasant. Fortunately, the Skype group for my region came through yet again. All I had to do was join in on the word wars, and I’m glad I did. This is the first year I’ve been so actively involved in any kind of social activity, and it is much more helpful than I realized it’d be.

The Story: I realized something a little bothersome today. I’m halfway through the 50k word goal, and my story hasn’t even really started yet. In fact, I’m on page 2 of my 11 page outline! The real meat of the story doesn’t even start until halfway through page 3. Right now, I’m just establishing my main characters and their relationship to each other. And sort of growing up my main character. Alexander starts the story at age 13 and jumps to 16 fairly quickly. Then there’s supposed to be another 6-month time speed, but first, Alexander’s mom wants to meet Leahna? How is that helpful? Alexander is still blissfully thinking his dad’s death report was entirely on the up-and-up (okay, maybe not blissfully). And what really concerns me is that, barring some spots I’ve marked for deletion later, I can’t say I feel like very much of it is superfluous. It’s going to be a difficult editing process for this one…

Total word count: 27384

The Words: 4309 written today. I went to work today, came home, had supper, husband came home, then husband left to go get kids. I had then an hour to myself, had already eaten, and was just ready to write in a quiet house. I ended up getting distracted by one of two Skype chat groups I’m in for NaNo, by some people who needed advice about tricks to use to get better word counts. I couldn’t let them down; they’re new to NaNo! So I wrote 300-some words during that time. Fortunately, after the 4-year-old was in bed, the other Skype group was doing word wars, so I got in on some of those. They melt my brain, but they are great for pushing my word count up, especially when the day is wearing down and I’m behind.

The Story: Okay, so writing that part of “Pursuit of Power” that matches up with “Adventures in Pithea” was not as fun as I thought it was going to be. Silly me, I forgot that, instead of just writing whatever comes, I’d need to stick more to what already happened in the other story. While this time, the scene was from someone else’s perspective, the same stuff still had to happen. It was slow going. When I got past that, things flew again. I ended up, during a 25-minute word war, writing out a thought process as Alexander was composing a letter to Leahna, who he’s desperately trying to convince to work with him. It was kind of fun, writing a few lines of the letter, then writing his thoughts as he told himself why not to say that part. “You idiot, don’t insult her. She’ll never help you then.” Stuff like that, except that might be a bit more extreme. I didn’t use the word “idiot” during my writing. Anyway, story moving forward! We may even get to the actual central plot soon!

Total word count: 22062

The Words: 5512 written today. I did again write some after midnight last night to get a head start on today’s words. Then while supper was in the oven for an hour, I managed to make it upstairs for one quick 20 minute sprint. My four-year-old daughter joined me, and did some mazes at my desk next to me. The rest of today’s words came this evening, when I participated in my very first ever word wars! Three of them, to be exact. I understand why people like them for the word count boost. Even though I already write in sprints, knowing I’m going to be comparing my word counts to others at the end of the pre-set time just makes the writing that much more frenzied.

The Story: I’m a little afraid Alexander is turning into a completely obsessional character. This feeling is very familiar, too. In 2009, I wrote another version of Alexander’s story. The plot went a very different way, and even my fictional story world was very different back then. However, the basic idea behind Alexander searching for the truth about his father, and then going on to be hunted and other things I can’t share right now were the same. I’m pretty sure that in that story I also started turning Alexander into a one-track-mind kind of character. Maybe that’s how he should be. I didn’t intend it, but maybe I should just let it go and see how it works out. I just don’t want him to get so intently focused on this path that he doesn’t pay any attention at all to other things around him, because, well, other things are important to the story too.

Total word count: 14954