So I made it through the first week of NaNoWriMo having written 19545 words, and am feeling pretty good about my progress so far. I’ve surprised myself by writing every day for 2-3 hours every morning and even more surprising is that I have resisted the urge to read over my work and edit as I go. I try to do at least one chapter a day and pick up where I left off the next morning. I’m also sticking to writing the story linearly rather than jumping backwards and forwards between scenes.
There have been a few times when I’ve stopped to think of better ways to express a sentence or try not to use the same phrase, and that’s halted the flow a little. It’s easy to criticise myself at these points, doubt creeps in and that little voice in the back of my mind that says the story isn’t good enough, the writing is childish, no one will want to read this etc. could bring the whole thing to a halt, but I just have to remind myself this is the first draft, no one is going to see it like this, and carry on.
I’m finding my plan enormously helpful. I know without it I probably wouldn’t have got this far. As a result, I’m starting week 2 with eleven chapters done and am over a third of the way through the goal of 50,000 words. I’m in an optimistic mood and looking forward to writing the next part of the story.
Maddie (I’ve finally settled on this spelling) has met Alex and they’re slowly getting to know each other. Of course, that means they’re heading towards disaster and they will have to overcome the obstacles thrown at them in order to stay together. Their immediate obstacle is the time distance between them, but things are about to get much, much worse.
And on that note, I shall leave you. I have a new chapter to write and word counts to update 🙂
Nel Ashley - Indie Author 