Holiday Wars

Day 1: Total Word Count: 232
I didn’t decide until two days before NaNoWrMo that I was going to do it so I was completely unprepared. I could’ve just jumped in and starting writing, but I don’t work that way. My backgorund is screenwriting so structure is really important to me. That means I spent most of the first day tweaking my outline. Then Scrivener 2.0 was released and the rest of my free time was spent setting it up and playing with all it’s new features.

Day 2: Total Word Count: 2,452
I finally started writing today. The downside is that the script… errr manuscript opens with an epic fight scene, like something you’d see at the end of a movie. As a result it’s lots and lots of prose and I HATE writing prose. So I got through my obligatory 1700 words (you have to write 1,667 a day to finish on time) and called it quits.

Day 3: Total Word Count: 4,510
I wrapped up the fight scene completely unhappy with it and this whole project. I support the novel and I want to do it, but doing it as part of National Novel Writing Month might have been a big mistake. It just doesn’t fit with my normal writing habits.

Day 4: Total Word Count: 6,982
I decided to say F* NaNoWrMo! I’m still participating and think it’s a great thing, I just can’t handle that word count hanging over my head. It gets in my way. So my goal instead of simply hitting that magic 50k by November 30th is to simply get through my rough rough draft of the novel. Chances are I’ll still hit the word count, but psychologically not having it as my goal is very helpful.

What do I mean by “rough rough draft?” Well for instance there might be a fight scene and instead of choreographing the whole thing out I’ll just say “Wicked fight scene between Taylor and a crocodile mummy. ((Taylor gets injured bad on arm. He then manages to win and then is swarmed by a whole horde of mummies)).” To be honest that’s what most of my rough drafts look like anyway. I just don’t see the point wasting time fleshing out a scene’s prose and making it look all pretty when during re-writes you cut and re-write like 75% of it anyway.

Day 5: Total Word Count: 9,033
Today was as soooo much better. Now that I’m writing in my normal style I’m flying and enjoying it.

Day 6: Total Word Count: 10,811
I made it to the Act I turning point, which has a pretty big fight scene at the end of it. I ended up calling it quits without writing the scene.

Day 7: Total Word Count: 12,919
I decided to skip the fight scene at the end of Act I completely and started writing Act II. Looking at the calendar I think I might just manage to get the rough draft done by November 30th and it will most likely be 60,000 to 70,000 words.

Week 1 Stats: