Mile 20

Today I hit around 36,000 words on my 50,000 word goal, or in marathon terms, around mile twenty. I can say, honestly, that I have no idea how I have gotten this far. The writing, after the first week, has been tedious and painful. Most of it will have to be scrapped. But I am okay with that (sort of).

At the beginning of this month, I set out to hit the NaNoWriMo goal, and barring anything crazy, I should be able to do that. During the last few days, I have started typing as fast as possible, writing for the shear joy of it, not editing myself a bit. I won't have a novel at the end of this. I might have the rough draft of a really bad series romance. Sandpaper rough. Heavy grit.

Still, I have learned that it takes absolute discipline to produce anything of any volume. That a reasonable word count for writing fiction (when you can't spend the entire day doing it) is, for me, around 500- 800 words per day. That I have to turn off all social media for some part of the day to stick with it. That writing is a really lonely job.

The experience has given me hope. Next year, I'm going to start on a real novel with a realistic timeframe. As for NaNoWriMo, I don't think I'll ever do it again.

Probably.