The Words: 25,010 written today! Okay, yeah, so wow. I basically decided some time in the last week to go for a 25kDayOne. I figured I’d be writing for basically 24 hours with little mini breaks now and then. And I had this little hope in the back of my mind that maybe I’d do so well that I’d actually get close to 50k.
The main thing I learned today is that just because I can write this fast doesn’t mean I should do it too often.
Basically, I averaged 2k per hour, for the first 7 hours, at which point I realized I was fading hard. I went to bed, woke up and went with my husband to pick up some leftover Halloween candy. Got back to writing while eating my lunch, never quite got back up to the same pace, and decided that when I hit 25k, I’d call it for the day. That happened just before 7 pm.
This is a screen shot of the spread sheet I kept throughout the day. I took a few notes in case I wanted to remember things later.
I’m still going to write every day this month. For at least the next few days, if I get the daily minimum done and feel like stopping, I will. I came pretty close to burning out today, and don’t want to risk it.
The Story: I’ll be honest. This story went nowhere good in 25,000 words. I barely got to the actual plot. Most of what I wrote was just showing what life is like at a reenactment. If I decide someday to try to do something further with this story, the first thing I’ll probably have to do is figure out how to break some of that up throughout the rest of the story so the main plot and conflict start sooner. The blade smith, Shawn Mallory, did finally go missing, though, and the MC, Darcy, has started doing video interviews with the different blacksmiths at the reenactment, at the behest of one of the older smiths, so they can compile a tribute to a retiring smith and the community he’s fostered in their region. (Yes, the word “smith” or “blacksmith” came up a lot just in this paragraph. Imagine how the rest of the story sounds. But that is the focal point of the story, so that’s just how it’s going to be. It’s easier when they have names, but I figured trying to include them all here would just be more confusing.)
Total word count: 25,010
Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already: 2015 – November 1st
And in honor of November 1st, the first episode of the NaNoMusical!
A Journey of Words 
Wow, that’s quite an extraordinary undertaking. I was contemplating doing something similar (aiming for 10k a day) but decided to take the lesson of the tortoise and the hare to heart. But congratulations to you for sticking with the 25k and achieving it! That’s true Conceive. Believe. Achieve. And don’t worry about plot. NaNoWriMo is just about the words 😉
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I’m glad I tried something like this once, but I’m not sure I’ll ever go to quite that extreme again. I’m much better with spreading it out. The most I’d ever done in a day before was 10k, and it wasn’t on purpose. Just happened. The tortoise is definitely more my style too.
It’s actually a good thing that I was able to write 25k words of no real plot, looking back on it now. If I’d had to write more conflict and plot-advancing stuff, it would have slowed me down. Being able to just write about life and the main character with her family before things started happening is probably why I did write so much so fast. So I definitely can’t complain about that.
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It’s a good writing exercise to just follow a flow without second guessing or overthinking the story you’re telling. 🙂 Too many times we hold ourselves back with self-doubt. That’s what I love about NaNoWriMo. It’s about the words and a story that doesn’t have to worry about what an audience thinks about it. It’s about the narrative that inspires you in the moment!
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I know there are some moments in the last two years’ novels that I wrote that I probably wouldn’t have come up with if I’d written them in a normal way–a little at a time, editing as I go, following more closely to the outline. I definitely get more off-script during NaNo, and things flow out that surprise me. And sometimes (not always) it’s an amazing thing that I just never would have otherwise written.
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Holy cats! With that output, you’ll have plenty to trim down into a super strong novel during revision. I don’t think taking the scenic route through your story is at all troublesome – that sounds exciting.
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That’s true. I’ll have a lot of material to work with if I do decide to do more with the story someday. It’s not working out like I’d expected, so what happens after NaNo remains to be seen, but there’s still a lot of time left. That “Aha!” moment when things suddenly start to come together could still be ahead of me.
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