Day 8 word count: 13520
I’m having a bit of a “Is this just me?” moment. Has anybody else had the experience where, when they try something new, they have a very clear picture of how it’s going to turn out, but then it doesn’t turn out like that AT ALL?
Yeah, that’s how NaNoWriMo is going for me.
To be clear, I don’t hate it. Not yet. But it’s still early!
Plan vs. Execution
If you read my check-in last week, you know that my prep week didn’t quite go as planned. I didn’t have as detailed an outline or setting description as I wanted. And I didn’t write a single character sheet. But that was fine, right? I was going to take week 1 to build myself a word count buffer so I would have space for my pacing to falter as I hit the mid-month doldrums.
Well, here are the numbers:
| Goal (2,000 words/day) | 16,000 words |
| On pace (1,667 words/day) | 13,336 words |
| Actual | 13,520 words |
So I’m TECHNICALLY got ahead of par, but nowhere near what I would have liked at this point in the month.
In practice, I’m struggling to execute my plan for three reasons:
Characters can get boring
In truth, my novel idea is part of a long, sprawling imagination monster that I’ve been slowly musing over for the past couple decades. It involves an entire fictional continent and interwoven storylines of at least three main characters.
All that seemed like too much for one 50,000-word novel, especially for a first-time author. So I picked one character to focus on.
And hot damn, is she boring.
Luckily, I have some interesting secondary characters that I’m going to promote to lead characters, but that part of my plan fell through very quickly.
Settings can be boring
Similar to my cast of characters, I pared my entire continent down to one location for the purposes of NaNoWriMo. But now that I’m a quarter of the way through the story…it’s not enough space for an interesting story!
So I’m going to let some of my characters leave and figure out what happens later.
Doing things consistently is HARD
Now THIS problem, I saw coming. I have a cycle that I go through in my life: get inspired, build a system, stick to the system for 2-4 weeks, get bored of the system, get inspired in a different direction, build a system…
When the system involves doing something every single day, that 2-4 weeks of compliance can shorten to 2-4 days. My brain seeks novelty.
True to form, I diligently wrote for the first few days, then didn’t write anything on Day 5, then back on track for Day 6, then skipped Day 7…
But in all honesty, admitting that I won’t achieve perfection this early is a great thing. It will allow me to continue to be excited for what I do accomplish this month.
Week 2 Plan
So this brings me to today. I’m on track to finish the novel (good), but I’m behind my own overachieving goals (oops). My main character is as boring as a stack of bricks (bad), but her younger sister is much more interesting (good) and I’m going to send her out into the wider world to see what happens out there (exciting).
I gotta say, I’m glad that I read No Plot? No Problem! as I was prepping for this month. It gives week-by-week tips and exercises to keep you moving toward the 50,000-word goal. From that, I got reassurance that shifting character perspective and setting is not only acceptable, but actively encouraged if it keeps the creativity flowing.
Looking into week 2, the goal is to try for 2,000 words/day again, with a bare minimum of staying on pace for finishing. As I write, I’ll write the scenes that feel fun to write, and give descriptions for the scenes that will get me to those points. I can go back and write those scenes later.
But this project is turning into a practice of self-forgiveness. The best-laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.
