NaNoWriMo Update: 50,000 . . . and Beyond!
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‘m still on a roll! And I even got sick in between. I missed two days of writing due to flu-like crud that I always seem to get in November, but once I recovered, I was back at it. My word count after the chapter I wrote tonight is 50,553 and I have nine chapters left to write. These are the most fun, since I’ve been mulling these over since I first conceived this plot at the beginning of the year. I feel like all of the crap I went through to get to these scenes is worth it now, because they’re such a joy to write. One of them is a love scene, which makes me nervous, but I’m sure I’ll get through it without traumatizing my characters too much. I might need therapy afterwards, though.
So, even if I write at the measly pace of one chapter a day, I should still finish right around Thanksgiving. I’ll probably make sure I do, just for my peace of mind. Then, my plan is to put this monster away for a few weeks- maybe until the first of the year. During that time, I’ll see if I can get Book Two started. I’m already outlining it and it’s going to be a monster, too. I can already see I will need to add at least two new POV characters to my existing four- possibly even a third.
So, barring any major disasters, I should be on the home stretch a week from now. I’m seeing some impressive numbers from others on WordPress and on Twitter. How is your month going?
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Something tells me you’re going to put that love scene off to the very last. MAYBE you should do it NOW. Sneak up on it, you know? Smile
Haha! Well, I think its on schedule to be written very soon in any case. I should probably just get it over with. It’ll be a big relief for everyone!
You go, girl! I also passed the 50,000 word mark recently. I’m not doing NaNo this year, as I said on my blog before, but I’m still having a ton of fun writing my novel. I just finished up a very harrowing scene (my main character was kidnapped and her schoolfriend’s father threatened to kill her!) and there’s more drama to come.
How many words is your novel going to be when you complete it? You said you’ve just passed the 50,000 word mark and have 9 chapters left. I write short chapters, so that wouldn’t be enough for me to have a full-length novel.
Wow, you’re getting a lot done! The harrowing, dramatic scenes are the most fun to write, i think.
My final word count will be around 170k I think (before revising). At the beginning of the month I was just over halfway in. My chapters vary from under 1k up to 4k. I’m pretty sure I’ll have to reorganize most of them during the revision!
How long do you think yours will be when you’re done?
I’m aiming for 80,000 or 90,000. I’m not writing epic fantasy like you are so I think that will be sufficient. š I actually wrote this very novel during last year’s NaNoWriMo. By the end of the month, I was so sick of it that I put it away and didn’t look at it for a while. Fast forward to August of this year, when I was searching for some sort of personal project to work on. I’d just finished a novella and wanted something else to write, and then I remembered my poor forgotten NaNoWriMo novel. I’ve been revising/rewriting it ever since. During NaNoWriMo, I only got about half of the actual book done, so I have been writing a lot of new scenes recently.
80-90k is a good length for a novel, I’ve heard!
I actually used to work on a few projects at once because concentrating on one thing made me sick of it after a while. š But then I wasn’t finishing anything, so I do try to focus on one thing at a time now, at least in the writing stages. What I mean by that is although I am actively writing one novel, I have done some planning/research/etc. for the next one I’m going to work on.
Well done on hitting 50,000. š It’s definitely an achievement. I’m heading in the right direction. Keeping up nicely.
Thanks! Glad it’s going well for you!