Birds (2 out of 2)

I'm wrapping up this year's National Novel Writing Month attempt after 30 days with 43,996 words. Shy of 50k, but a new second place.

I feel like I'm about half way through Birds and I'm going to try to keep up a pace of at least 750 words per day (thanks 750words.com) for days I can - the only real excuse not to being Vipassana meditation courses - until it's done.

In a way, doing nanowrimo in a different month has reminded me that I can write during months that aren't November. Usually, on the 1st of December I decide I'll take a break, recharge, it's been crazy.. but I'll get back to it. I'll write the ending, I'll edit. And I haven't, yet. This time should be different. For a start, I don't feel burnt out on the story. I haven't had a single day of writing words for the sake of words. It's all been to advance the plot or develop the characters, moving ever forwards. This month it didn't feel crazy.

This is a mean of 1,466 words per day.
Only on one day I wrote 0 words (the 26th).
Apart from that, the least I wrote in a day was 16 words (the 21st).
The most I wrote in a day was 3,410 (on the 10th).
On 12 days I wrote more than the 1,667 target.

🏷 nanowrimo Birds writing

Wed 31st of October 2018 at 12:00am (+02:00)

I just passed 30k words and I am ON TRACK for the FIRST TIME EVER.

Even the year I passed 50k by month end only happened because of a huge push in the last couple of days, rather than keeping a consistent pace throughout.

I've definitely had low days, and high ones to compensate, but nothing extreme. It just sort of feels much more doable this year. Not sure what's different. Well, lots of things are different; not sure which is the cause.

I'm writing a totally different genre to what I'm used to: Earth, presentish day (near future, perhaps), humans and parrots (and a dog); familiar setting, regular people, no aliens, no epic journeys. I was very worried about this actually, but things are flowing well, and I don't feel like I have written any absolute garbage purely for wordcount yet.

I've travelled, socialised and worked probably about the same amount as I did last year, though at different velocities. Not any less busy, particularly. I was free of all PhD concerns before last year's. Maybe my head is just in a better place. Maybe I'm becoming better at writing. Maybe October is better for writing than November. Who knows.

🏷 life Birds nanowrimo travel writing

Thu 18th of October 2018 at 11:14pm (+03:00)