Halfway Mark…. #NaNoBlog

I know I promised regular blogging posts throughout NaNoWriMo 2011. Unfortunately, I’ve been having trouble with this NaNo year. Between my work hours (not good – 5pm to 1:30am), the weather, and a few other things starting to creep up on me, I’ve not had a great month so far. In fact, it got to the point where this morning (well, yesterday morning really, it’s currently just after 2am here) I was worried that this would be the first NaNoWriMo I wouldn’t win. Not a happy thought (the fact that I can win NaNoWriMo keeps me going during the blahs of November, which I need, desperately…).

I was at the point where I challenged myself on Friday to make 25K by today (Sunday) at midnight. (We’re supposed to have reached 33,334 words if we’re on schedule with the daily word count goal.)

So, I was in that sort of state until about 2:40pm this (Sunday) afternoon. Then it occurred to me that at least part of the problem I was having was with the setting of my story. It wasn’t working, and it was leaving my story rather bland and boring, even considering the confrontation with the redcap that Alan had. (And killing off Alan’s partner and potential girlfriend via said redcap.) I kind of shrugged, and went, “Okay, I’m going to change the setting. What I’ve written so far will still count for my word count, but I’ve got to change it.”

Less than 1-2/3 hours and about 3,750 words later, I was pretty sure that was a good part of the problem. *grins wryly at everyone* As I mentioned on Twitter, with this change, I seem to be back to my fairly steady 500 words/20 minutes flow (when I can write for more than 15 minutes at a time). Between what I got done before work (*points at aforementioned word count, plus 370 that I got in this morning*) and what I got done during my breaks and “lunch” at work, guess what goal I made?

Yeah, you got it. I hit 25,001 words total just at the end of my last break, at about 11:30 tonight (Sunday). Such a relief.

My next goal is to get to about 33,000 by Tuesday night (which will be my first night meeting the St. John’s NaNos, because of my work schedule). I’m rather looking forward to it. And if I keep at the rate I’m going, I may even reach the daily word count goal by Wednesday or Thursday! *crosses fingers* I’m getting there, finally. No more days of no writing! Down with bland scenes! Lead on to excitement!

(No, there will be no zombie ninja pirates. Sorry, fellow NaNos. But there are vampires and werewolves… sort of….)

Anyway, off to get some sleep, and then: More Writing!

‘Later, all!

😉 tag0

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