I think I’m doing pretty good at not writing too much–too much being so much that I cause pain in my body like I did last year. I said my goal was 3,333 per day, so that I could make 100,000 words by the end of the month, which is about what my first drafts usually run. But, I like to write more at the beginning of the month so I don’t have to be trying to make my word count on Thanksgiving, and because I’ve always liked to get things done early. I was under 5,000 words for the first day and when my daughter asked how NaNo was going and if I was under 10K for once in my life, I replied that I was a good way into day two and was still under 10K.
My husband pointed out that if I got to 10K today, I could take tomorrow off and be right on target. Interesting theory, but there’s no way I want the same word count at the end of tomorrow that I start the day with.
Still, I’m not at 20K or whatever insane amount I was at last year on day two. So, maybe I won’t write to the point of pain this year. But still finish before the end of the month even if it takes more than 100,000 words for the first draft. Then again, if I finish too early, I’ll do what I did a couple of years ago, and add to an existing novel. I think I wrote 183,000 that year.
The advice during NaNo is, don’t edit. Don’t go back, just keep writing. Every word counts.
But what if you just wrote something that doesn’t fit with where you thought your novel was going? I’m not talking about a day’s writing, just a few lines that you look at and go, ‘Where did that come from?’ I did that recently. The main character was talking with her probably-going-to-be-ex-husband and mentioned visiting her father. Her husband’s response. “He doesn’t live it Rome.” Next line. “How do you know that?”
Oh, wow. That could be a huge vat of intrigue, and it really surprised me. I didn’t think the jerky husband cared enough to know where his wife’s husband was. (He hadn’t noticed that she’d been in Europe for the last three days.)
So I took a break from writing to think about the possible ramifications. I took a short walk. It had possibilities, but wasn’t where I thought the story should go. I thought about it a bit more, tempted to explore the options, then I did something very, very satisfying. I deleted those two sentences. And, voila, I was back on track. I replaced them with, “I thought your father lived in Domodossola.” The vat of intrigue was closed, and it was just common knowledge between a couple that had been married for over twenty years. And I could keep writing.
Sometimes that fastest way to make progress is to hit the delete key. If it had been longer than two lines, I might have put it into the sub-heading ‘didn’t use’ and the words would still count. But this was only ten words and it would take me longer to copy and paste it into the right file and come back to where I was. Plus, there is something so very satisfying about watching those words that don’t belong disappear character by character.
I often write sentences that surprise me and I’m thrilled. While I have a detailed outline, I discovery-write my characters, so I gradually figure out what they’re like based partly on what the story needs, but also on whatever happens to pop into my head. When that happens the words flow, or I quickly see connections with what has already happened, or what I still want to happen. But sometimes it’s a path I don’t want to travel.
To keep the story on track, I’ll hit the delete key when needed. I think it makes me write faster, not slower.
But then, I like to edit. Even during November.
It wasn’t as much fun as going all out, but it probably is a better way of working in the long-term.
I finished the first draft of my novel, Overbooked, on November 22, several hours before we left to pick up our first child for Thanksgiving break, which was my overall goal. It took 102,795 words. Which meant I averaged just under 5,000 words a day. I had tried to establish 3,333 as my goal, but that didn’t last long. Not when I wanted to finish early, and it was clear the book would be well over 80,000 words after just a few days of writing. But if I’d started with a goal of 5,000 words a day, the chances are high I’d have averaged more than that. It’s just the way I am.
Even with the plan of not overdoing, it was very difficult not to strive for 10K on the first and second days. It was very hard not to write another 5K on the day someone passed me on the word chart, and stayed just a few thousand ahead of me. I had a great time meeting the person who did that and calling him my arch-nemesis. I’m delighted there’s another person who is writing 10K a day, who started late, who might just pass him. Part of what I love about NaNoWriMo is that it allows me to be very competitive.
Doing yoga and painting to limit the amount of writing resulted in one bedroom painted, and a very sore left shoulder–so I quit doing that after the first week.
But I took frequent breaks. I walked a lot, biked on the exercise bike without trying to write at the same time, and I waited to write a scene instead of struggling through it when I was tired. I often thought the scene was much better for my having waited.
I posted the first chapter on Critiquecircle.com and it will be critiqued in early December. I’ve gone over the first chapter once, and plan to do a second and third pass before it comes up, but it’s ready for feedback. I’m debating letting the rest of the novel sit a month or two, or doing a quick, clean-up pass. Haven’t decided yet.
The biggest change from previous years is that once I finished the first book, I didn’t move on to another project, or add scenes just to keep writing thousands of words a day. It feels strange to be done before the end of November, but that is also part of my plan not to overdo this year.
I even worked on my back-of-the-book blurb.
Overbooked: When her flight home from Amsterdam is overbooked, Candice stays behind. Her business-obsessed husband and independent teenage daughter point out that Candice doesn’t have anything better to do. An extra day in Amsterdam turns into two when her family doesn’t even bother to update her on their difficulty in returning home. The attention of an attractive French man makes her consider going to Italy with him. She’s always wanted to connect with the father who walked thirty years ago. Should she take this opportunity, or return home to a huge house that’s as empty as her life?