NaNoWriMo week 1

It sounded like a good idea, but I knew there was now way I could plunk down 1666 words a day. Since I was doomed to fail from the start, I wasn’t going to do NaNo.

Now I’m in the thick of it.

Honestly, there is not enough time in the day. My wife still insists on normal things getting done. She hasn’t approved a 30-day hiatus from obligations. We’re used to three meals a day, so eight hours of it is spent at work. How you people with children in the home can add that extra load is beyond me. (Ann Dee Ellis had some words about managing all that her blog this week. http://throwingupwords.wordpress.com/2012/11/06/swimming/ )

My word count is low, terribly low. The NaNo site has a great personal word tracker. I’m averaging 474 words a day and my count on the bar graph falls far below the upward moving goal line. At this rate they project February 2013 is when I’ll reach 50,000. I guess that makes it NoNoWr4Mo. I need to pump out 2155 words a day to make it by December. Have you ever tried to write that many words a day? Last evening, I sat down to reach at least 1666. I wrote until midnight and I only got 667, exactly a thousand short. See? I knew I wouldn’t be able to “win.”

Yet, I still think I’m winning. I’m getting a new story cranked out. I’ve had this one in mind for a while and other commitments have kept it on the back burner. I wish I had planned it last month so I could write it this. I took one day off (couldn’t stop watching the election results) and that threw my momentum off. Then on Wednesday my story went sour and it took Thursday’s writing minutes to sketch a few things out. The only way to repair it was to re-write the first several chapters. But that’s revision and NaNo is pure rough writing. Too bad. That’s what it needed and now I’m back on track. My track, mind you. I’m not one of the Kenyans at the front of the marathon. I’m bringing up the rear. But I’m winning. For now.