Writing has been slow again for me this week. I’ve written a total of 4,400 words for NaNo — a rather pitiful showing considering my initial goal was 30,000.

I spent one evening reading through more of my beta for WoEM, so that was certainly worth the NaNo sacrifice.

I did finally manage to break 1,000 words for a single night! I didn’t expect it to take me nearly half of NaNo to reach that bar.

Another positive from this week is that I have a clearer idea of where I’m going with one of my main POV characters for WoEL. Most of my work this month has been on the opening chapter for this POV character. As any other writer can attest, the opening chapter for any story arc is often the hardest. Numerous questions have hampered my progress?

• How much info do I reveal?
• How quickly do I want to progress the character’s arc?
• How do I avoid info-dumping and keeping the first section engaging?

I’ve wrestled with these questions for much of November. Finally, however, I’ve reached a satisfying ending or near-ending for this opening section, and I’ve been able to outline the next two sections for this character in more detail.

Hopefully, I don’t face the same issues with my other characters’ opening sections… I have a feeling that’s wishful thinking.

Recalibrating my NaNo Goals

Now that we’re more than halfway through NaNo, I need to recalibrate and try for a more realistic goal. So let’s break this down.

Sixteen days through NaNo, with 4,453 words written, I’ve averaged about 278 words per day.

I know I can better than that. I’ve covered 4,000 words in a single day before. So let’s round up to a goal of 500 words per day for the remainder of November — 14 days.

That’s 7,000 more words, for a Grand NaNo Total of 11,453.

Definitely not what I had envisioned in October, but not bad. As is my tendency, I’m going to round up to 12,000 words, because round numbers are better.

Writing Goal for 11/24: 10,000

Steve D