The NaNoWriMo 2007 Report: Week 3

Wednesday, November 21, 2007
This week has been only slightly less painful than Week 2. I've gotten a much better feel for the characters who I felt were not that well developed before, and most of them have taken some interesting turns in terms of their insights and actions. The story itself has started picking up in its pacing, but at this moment I don't know who did it or why. (I remember now why I don't write straight mysteries . . .)

Despite the muse's reluctance, I have managed to average more than my personal goal each day, so I should be in really good shape for the home stretch next week. (I also looked at my progress last year and I had reached this week's word count on the 28th, so things are progressing much, much better this year.)

I can see now that this will turn into a much longer novel than last year's effort (in the end). At the 40,000-word mark, things are only now starting to get interesting--and one of the sub-plots has barely been explored. It feels better structured than last year's effort, but I'm also finding that I'm getting bogged down with the same sort of issues as last year in terms of keepinig the plot advancing. I think it's a side effect of having to write, write, write without being able to take the time to really plot things out, so I resort to more inner examination of the characters. (It's also, as I told a friend, a way of making notes to myself of things to remember or explore later in a future draft or story.)

Okay, okay, I will admit that it is much nicer this year to not be 8,000 words behind my goal, and it's very nice to be 5,000 words ahead of where I should be.

We'll see what next week brings . . .
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  1. I'm glad to hear you're still keeping up with the writing! Hope life is treating you well. Just checking out the sites on my blogroll to make sure they are still currently being updated, so I stopped by to say Hi!