Well, it has been an interesting week, to put it mildly. I was able to kick off Nanowrimo in the manner I was hoping for. I had over 2,500 words my first day which was exactly where I hoped to be. Still, despite hitting the word-count, I wasn’t thrilled with what I put down.
Yes, I know that the quality of Nanowrimo output can sometimes be a bit suspect but I had pretty high hopes for this book. By day two I had straightened out the story and things were moving along better. Now on day eight I’m just shy of 18,000 words; maybe not quite as far along as Aaron or Terry, but I’m well on track to hitting my goal within the first 20 days.
I’ve already managed to contact some of my friends from last year. One friend who goes by the handle of ShyEmpress was living in Calgary last year. This year she’s in Tanzania and still competing. Thanks to Nano, I’ve been able to get back in contact with her. It’s just one of the many things I like about Nano. You meet new people and make new friends.
I also like the status bar. I’m actually thinking about getting a status bar of my own whenever I’m working on a project. It’s very motivating.
Now there is one thing that I have learned. I was wondering how I would handle the whole introduction of the previous book in the sequel. How do I give the reader some sense of what happened before?
That could be why I was having such trouble starting the story. I wasn’t sure how to tell the reader what had happened before without regurgitating the entire first book. I decided to only talk about the bits that mattered, those things that made my character who he was and brought him to the current spot.
Once I got past that, I was able to move on and actually start writing what I wanted. Since then, the story has truly become a family project. My wife and kids have been giving me ideas for the story which has really helped. I did go into the whole project knowing what the overarching story line would be as well as a couple of twists, but the extra help has been great.
I have set a single hour personal best. I wrote just over 2,600 words in 60 minutes. I know I won’t be able to do that every single time I sit down, but it’s nice to know that I can do it when I have to.
So that’s the update for this week. Hopefully next week will be just as good.
