Day 10 is upon us!
Panic, Panic, Panic. Day 10! 1/3 of the way through? Have you all written your 16,666 words?
I certainly haven’t. I am ashamed to say that I am way behind this year. I only have myself to blame. A big part of why I’m so behind is that I normally panic during November. This year, I had a lot on and I didn’t want to get too stressed out so I told myself to take it easy. After all, I’ve finished two years in a row now. Surely a third would be a doddle? I was working a little bit behind par most days, with a few days hitting 2k to compensate, but I work weekends and this last one really knocked me for six. I wrote nothing on Saturday or Sunday. Nothing! I don’t know what kind of a mad fool novelist I thought I was to try and get away with it, but now my graph looks like this:
As you can see, I have done a little bit today. I have a day off, so I’m working to close the gap a little. I’ve broken down everything I want to write today into 500 word blocks, and I’m going to attack the problem head on until I’ve written 3k. I won’t catch up with that fiendish dotted line, but I should close the gap enough to keep me going. I have some more time off coming up next week, so I’m going try and leave Mr Line coughing in my dust.
As for the novel itself, things are interesting. Plot developments are happening without my control again, and I’m being forced to confront more problems with my initial idea, but I’m still pretty happy with the results. My usual weaknesses are peeping through. Too much emphasis on dialogue, not enough establishment of clear characters and settings, but I’m going to really try and clean that up in the rewrite.
How are you guys doing?