Last year, I developed a renewed and profound appreciation of coffee while doing Nanowrimo. Let’s see how that works out this year!
This year, the days fall so that November begins and finishes with a weekend, and there are 5 weekends in total, which is very handy since it means less working days and hence more writing time.
To complete Nanowrimo, it’s necessary to write an average of 1,667 words per day. But I’m going to have a couple of busy weekends (such as the Whoniversal Appeal conference), and inevitably there will be some days where I won’t manage to hit that target. Which means I need to take full advantage of days like today to get ahead of the game – my target for today is at least 3,333 words (two days worth of Nanoing).
I’m starting with around 30,000 words worth of existing material. You’re supposed to start a new story, but hey, I’m a radical! I don’t play by nobody’s rules. Not when I’ve got a novel to finish, anyway.
The point is to get on and finish my first draft of This Darkened World, which has taken a bit of a backburner with short stories and competition entries and stuff. I’ve actually written around 45,000 words, but I’m having to cut out around one third of that.
The first reason for that is because I’ve realised that a lot of stuff that happens at the end of the first “act” of the novel really ought to be held back until the final showdown. Too much is revealed and too much happens too early on, so that stuff has to go and will have to be completely rewritten in its new place in the story.
The second reason is that I’ve had a much better idea of what to do with the middle section of the book. I’ve got the end of the story in mind, but had started writing the middle part of the book without much idea of what exactly to do in the middle. I had a bunch of ideas for some cool locations for the characters to visit, but not much actual plot. I’ve got a better idea now, but it means abandoning around 10,000 words of material. Oh well, them’s the breaks.
I’ve uninstalled the games from my computer, and I’ll be switching off my wifi. It’s time to stop writing about writing, and actually get on with writing!
