Time is going by quickly. I'm in the week two blues where the entire manuscript has become a mess, including my notes, the direction my plot is going, the dynamics of the main character. Everything. So I went to Barnes & Noble.
As I'm browsing, I come across the book, "No Plot, No Problem" written by Chris, who's last name shall remain secret because I don't remember it. Anyway it's his book (he's the guy who started (?) NaNoWriMo), about how to write a novel in a month.
Apparently what I'm feeling in week two is completely normal. That things are in fact shit. Week three is suppose to be much better. My word count––which I track compulsively on a spread sheet with a bar graph, averages, projected total based on daily average, words per day needed to reach 50,000---basically the works––has dwindled of late. The weekend is partially to blame but it sounds like a norm for this stage.
I'm counteracting the dwindling total by trying to write several small sessions per day, rather than sitting down for two hours and pounding out 1,666.6 words. I'll shoot for five hundred here, four hundred later, another five hundred before bed. This strategy has kept my head above water, because while I don't feel like I really wrote this weekend, just by completing seven hundred words on two occasions I'm still in it. Heck it's fourteen hundred words I won't have to worry about later.
Chris also said once you reach 35,000 it's cake.
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