Update from the writing trenches

I figured with five days in, it’s a good time to fill you in on my NaNoWriMo project, or at least the process of my NaNoWriMo project.

I’ve been doing NaNoWriMo for 17 years–that’s a LOT of words on the page. And, to be honest, there were only 3 years that I completely blinked out on. One of those years, I met my husband. One of those years, I got married. And one of those years, life happened in a BIG way.

While I’ll never get those 3 years I missed back, each year it’s a smaller percentage of failure on the page. That makes me feel better.

Last night I hit 8,470 words written. That’s pretty good in my book, considering I’ve only had one day since the start of the month that I haven’t been working 8-11 hour shifts. My productive writing times seem to be around 9-11 at night. I don’t know why. As a writer, I always heard you are most active in the morning, but I also work pretty early, and tend to be focused while at work. I did take a few days where my hour lunch turned into a writing spree, which was nice, but it was also found time that I could have used in other ways.

To me, the best part of NaNo is taking some set time to write, but not to be afraid of those found moments where you have 30 minutes or an hour and you have a really good idea you want to convey.

I hope to hit at least 10,000 words tonight. That’s 20% of the project done!
While the recommended 1766 words per day means I should be at 8830 today, I’m hoping I can get a solid 2,000 in and just have that much more time later to relax or take some me time.

Me time would be nice. I’ve had a headache (sinus) all day. I’d also like to use the reward that I got myself for hitting 10,000 (hint: it’s a funkoverse board game).

Are you doing NaNoWriMo? Where are you at in the game? Please share in the comments below.