NaNoWriMo for 11-13-6

Halfway mark!

Good on words. Except this really isn’t the halfway mark of my novel. I knew my problem wouldn’t be hitting 50K, but actually FINISHING “the end” of my novel by the end of the month. I can’t do it during this week particularly, but I’ll be doing another giant charge next weekend. I quite literally just wrote 10K between Friday night and Sunday night. (Okay, fine, I tossed in a few hundred this morning to get me to 25K.) After the stress of this week passes, I’ll have to actually plot out a rough outline of events. Once I get into emotionally charged events, I just start rolling. Bam.

(And love-scenes eat a lot of words. Ha ha.)

I would not be surprised if I end up being well over 75K by the end of the month. Expect MUCH larger outputs as I near the meat of Xavier’s decline and rebirth. I’m just glad that despite being seemingly random, I’m getting good dialogue. I manage to have my characters say meaningful things without them being particularly aware of the huge impact of their words. It says something to the reader, while Xavier’s still stuck in his own head. I try to put effort into the larger characters I use. Some are no doubt based on people I know, but I try to change them enough so that I’m not restricted to the original inspirations at all. Natalie’s a good example of that.

I love the ability to take something that happened in real life, and wonder, “What could have happened?” It’s absolutely critical you don’t restrict yourself to real life. Real life it’s boring, it’s already happened, there’s no mystery.

I’m glad I did this last year. Because now, again, I’m seriously not worried about word count. I’m worried about having enough time to give Xavier the .. wordage he deserves. I’ll probably be pulling away from the secondary characters a little bit. I do adore my tendency to shift perspective, and tell a little bit about the people surrounding him. But, this is ultimately about him.

People come, people go. I have no problem introducing people without actually introducing them, knowing their background. We know people as they are, without knowing their childhood and all their issues. This is why you can read the this sequel without reading what I wrote last year. We understand people as they are now, not through some giant hallway of memories. Oh sure, it adds perspective, but most people we meet in our lives, we just won’t know that intimately.

…:: smiles ::

And to everybody else that isn’t at halfway, GET OFF YOUR ASS. 15th is the middle of the month.