I wrote a lot this morning, for me: 774 words. That's almost half my daily word count goal. I usually only manage somewhere in the 400 to 500 range, which is somewhere in the one-fourth to one-third range.
It probably helped that the boys slept in more today than they usually do. It was quiet, which is good for my writing. That, and I had a scene in mind that I was looking forward to writing. It's never as good on the page as it is in my head, but it was good to get this one down. The action of my novel is now starting to take off.
On Sunday, one of the interns at the Office of Letters and Light, those wonderful people who put on NaNoWriMo every year, posted a blog entry about the Young Adult Novel Discovery Competition. I was intrigued by this when I saw it. One, I'm writing a young adult novel this year, and, two, the picture they used was the cover of a book I just read, Writing Great Books for Young Adults by Regina L. Brooks. I decided to enter the contest, so last night I sent them my title, Asylum, the first 250 words of my novel, and my $15 entry fee. I'm not expecting much, but if I'm ever going to get a novel published, I have to send my writing out to the publishing industry. This seemed like a good way to start.
Wrote some more tonight, reaching 19,203! At day ten, the word goal is 16,667 words, so I'm ahead of schedule, thanks to that lead I got the first day. In terms of percentage, I should be at 33%, but I'm at 38%. It's a nice feeling, being a little bit ahead of schedule.
This is how I won last year, writing every day, writing those 1,667 words, at least, just about every day. I think I had two days last year when I only wrote about 900 to 1,000 words. This year I'm averaging over 1,900 words a day.
I've got plenty yet to write. No worries on the plot front. I'm not going to jinx myself by saying "smooth sailing" or anything like that, but I am on track for winning again this year. And I think I have a good chance of actually finishing my novel the first time through. I have a much better sense of what I'm writing this year. I know, roughly, how it's going to end, and I think that's making all the difference.
Yay! Keep it up. I'm behind but plugging along and have higher hopes of finishing unlike last year. For one thing I know my main characters better and I still like them!
ReplyDeleteKeep plugging along. That's the best way to finish. Glad to hear you still like your main characters. I'm enjoying writing about mine as well. I'm having loads of fun with my villains.
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