They say NanoWrimo doesn’t start until the first weekend passes and you’ve written only half the words you meant to.
Actually, no one says that, but that’s what happened in my case. The game plan was to write 800 words after midnight on Thursday night, and then 4,000 words during a big day on Friday, which would’ve allowed me to take the weekend off and still be almost at par (I had plans for almost all of Saturday and Sunday, so getting an early lead was a crucial part of the strategy). Instead, I failed right out of the gate when I wrote zero words after midnight on Thursday. Well no, that’s not true–I actually wrote 2,500 words after midnight on Thursday, but they were part of a critique I did for a friend and had nothing to do with Nano. (But hey, I’m a good friend!) Then, after getting not enough sleep, I lacked the energy and willpower to have a truly big day on Friday. I wrote for 2 hours and 40 minutes and banged out 2,262 words. Certainly not bad, but not what I was aiming for.
I snuck in 20 minutes tonight (Sunday) just to make a token effort, and I added another 182 words. I kind of think that just keeping my head in the novel tonight will make things a bit easier in the coming days.
My goal for this week (Monday-Friday) is to get to 15,000 words. I’ve written almost every week for the past four years (the few exceptions occurred during major poker tournaments), but this will be my most productive week in terms of word count–and probably also in terms of hours–since the last time I did NanoWrimo. I’m re-learning that there’s incredible power in deadlines, a lesson I plan to carry forward after this whole Nano thing ends.
How’s everyone else doing?