The Words: 5419 today.
I more than made up for yesterday’s shorter word count. After midnight last night, I wrote for another hour, trying to salvage the night’s writing, even if it counted for the next day. That got me about 2500 words. Then from around 10:30 to 11:30, I did a few sprints with @NaNoWordSprints and even wrote in between.
I’m getting more and more excited about this story. It’s funny, because on Nov. 13th, I gave myself the badge that says I had a eureka moment.
I thought that filling out the middle of the novel (and adding more words to a somewhat short novel) by showing one of the MCs in her home environment (which was then part of a more important moment) was a big “Aha!” moment.
Then, on the 25th, I had the defining “Aha!” moment of this novel, in which I realized what I was really writing. (I won’t explain it again, but go here if you want to read about it–it’s near the bottom of the post.) Then I had to change course with the climax and conclusion of the story.
I kept thinking I needed to sit down with a notebook and write out some new ideas for those things. I thought I was going to outline the last few scenes of the book. I cannot stress this enough–I have never done well as a pantser. However, I never got around to doing any of that planning, but kept having to come back to my writing without any more idea of what was going to happen.
The discovery and smaller “Aha!” moments that have come out of that writing have been amazing! Don’t get me wrong–a lot of it is going to need some serious work. I wrote several scenes that I later had to mark for deletion and wrote something else when I realized it needed to go a different way. But I think I am on the right track now, and I am hoping I will have time to finish the draft tomorrow. (I’m past the climax, but I don’t know how long the conclusion will end up being.)
The Story: Clark got himself into a bit of trouble and was taken to the king, who fortunately knows enough about what’s going on to trust him when he says he has a story to tell him. But first, they have to go somewhere safe.
Total word count: 81,967
Don’t forget to check out today’s NaNoToons if you haven’t already: 2018 – November 29th
A Journey of Words 