NaNoWriMo Log: Days 15-21 Falling Behind

Looks like I won't be "winning" NaNoWriMo this year after all. I fell behind rather badly this week, and now that the holidays have begun in earnest, I don't see myself getting much if any writing done this week. But that's okay, because I managed to write 34,869 words in 21 days, and that's a pretty big number. I'm happy with it. Towers of Might and Memory is now 77,451 words long and I love how this story is coming together, and I'm enjoying the character development and how many of the various threads are getting tied up. There's still a lot of work to do, and probably another 40-50k words left in the story, but I think I am still on track to finish the book before we ring the final bell on 2019.

Day 15: 37 words

Yeah... that's really not a lot. But it kept my "writing streak" going.

Day 16: 85 words

Again, nothing much actually getting done on this day...

Day 17: 2004 words

Picked up the pace and actually wrote a considerable amount of story. Felt pretty good about how everything was going, but starting to get discouraged about how far I was falling behind on the daily goals.

Day 18: 2465 words

I think the word-count goal was getting to me, because even though I wrote a good number of words two days in a row, seeing that I was still 2,000 words short of where I was "supposed" to be was discouraging and I didn't feel good about the writing I did get done. This is an ever-present possibility when it comes to NaNoWriMo, and can be difficult to overcome or ignore.

Day 19: 914 words

Yep, that discouragement was starting to paralyze me.

Day 20: 0 words

Wednesdays are difficult days for me to get writing done in general because it's the day of our children's midweek program at church and by the time I get home in the evenings and get the hobbits to bed, I don't have a whole lot of energy left to for writing. If I don't get it done in the afternoon, it rarely happens later in the evening. So I took a break and watched Stargate with my husband. It was awesome.

Day 21: 1072 words

Not a bad day of writing. Hit my personal goal, anyway.

Day 22: 3,352 words

I know the graphic says days 15-21... but I'm throwing in this extra day because I'm pretty sure it's the last big day of writing I'm going to get in for the month. Derek got his nose broken a couple of weeks ago, (long story... short version, it was a crazy accident and no, he didn't get in a fight, and yes, the slightly crookedness of it DID give him "a rather devil-may care look" as Luna Lovegood might say) but the long and the short of it was that he needed to have surgery to get it fixed so he could breathe correctly through his nose again, and today was the day for that to happen. Some wonderful friends watched the hobbits for us and I sat in the waiting room for a couple of hours and got 2500 words written while the surgery was happening, and then Derek insisted that I write a bit more later that evening after the hobbits were in bed... but I had a pretty awful headache and "only" managed about 800 more words.And now the holidays are upon us, and while it looks very much like I won't win this marathon... I am content. I am a teeensy bit jealous of all of you who have already hit 50,000 words... and those of you who have even managed 100k.... I am in awe!!! You are superstars and I am SO proud of you for all your hard work this month! And to everyone else, whether you were participating in NaNo or not, whether you wrote 0 words or 150,000 words this month.... your stories are worth telling. Keep up the good work. It's hard, it's thankless, and it's not likely that you'll get rich at it... but then, nothing worth doing ever came easy. There is a reader for every story. And you don't know whose life you might touch, whose heart you might change with that story that only YOU can tell. So don't give up!And Happy Thanksgiving, dear Reader. I am thankful for YOU.