So, today was the third day of NaNoWriMo. How did I do? Better than expected. I started the day verbally constipated. Each word produced was a minor victory. I couldn't seem to string together more than two or three sentences before stopping to check my word count, to stand up and take a break, to do anything except write. At dinnertime I had managed to work (for my job!) for four hours, to sleep for four hours and to spend at least an hour watching television.

I started writing at about 7:30 and by 8:30 I still had more than half my daily allotment to go. Between 9 and 10 I managed to do the rest of it plus about 350 words. My goal for today was to get to a total of 5,001 words. I actually made it to 5, 358 words before I called it quits.

The best part is that I left off at a point where I knew where I was going and what I wanted to say. I quit reluctantly rather than writing until I was exhausted. I feel good about my story and where it's going. I know what I'm going to write tomorrow. What more could I ask for?

Tomorrow's goal: 6,668 words. My hope? 7,000 even at the very least. I'd love to get to ten or maybe even 12k but that is probably wishful thinking.

So what? Well, October 1st is the day when you can first sign in to the NaNoWriMo forums. If you are not a writer or have been living at the top of a very high mountain somewhere, you may not know the meaning of NaNoWriMo or why I'd be so excited about it. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. The idea is that you join NaNoWriMo and you write a 50,000 word novel in the thirty days from November 1st to November 30th.

Is it possible? Yes, it definitely is possible. I have finished three times now (2003, 2004, and 2007) and participated four times. I don't know what happened in 2005 and 2006. I think it was a combination of lack of motivation and lack of time.


Can you write a GOOD (meaning publishable) novel in 30 days? Maybe. While I don't think any of the three novels I've done so far are "ready for prime time" I do think that each was better than the one before it and that the last one was pretty close to what I'm looking for. I haven't picked the story I want to write this year, but I'm thinking that it might just make the cut and be good enough to send out after some editing.

I have seen novels that were written as a series of short (or even short, short) stories. I'm considering trying that this year. Instead of writing one large 50k piece, I think my goal is going to be to write a separate but related 1600 word story every day. That means that I will have 30 very short self-contained chapters rather than 20 or so longer chapters. If I consider that each small chapter is one or two closely related self-contained scenes, it might make the process easier.

Are you familiar with NaNoWriMo? What will you do this year?