I have a love / hate relationship with this time of year.
I love the cooler weather, and those first few brisk mornings full of dry Fall air are amazing. On the other hand, we fall back and it gets dark at 5 PM. We typically have beautiful weather in October / November, but ragweed and golden rods are blooming and double-teaming my seasonal allergies. And to top things off this year, we keep getting hit by back-to-back hurricanes so it’s been less leaves falling and more like limbs and branches falling.
With November upon us, that means it is time for Nanowrimo. I’ve taken part in Nanowrimo once before, but it was for a book that never got off the ground as I was just never happy with the story in my head. This year, rather than using Nanowrimo to start a new book, I’m cheating and using it as an opportunity to hold myself accountable and get the first draft of this book finished. I started last night at 62,359 words. Between watching football and fighting through some dialog that I couldn’t get to sound very natural, I finished up at 63,130. It was far less than half of what I wanted to get accomplished, but I got a tough section worked through and I think the dialog feels natural now, so the next little bit should flow easily.
Of course, I was on vacation last week and had gradiose visions of finishing the book then. But the week was full of appointments, a hurricane, my 9th wedding anniversary, and Halloween, all of which were more important than just sitting down and trying to plow through the book. Instead, I spent what time I would have normally been writing verifying the timeline presented in the book works in the grand scheme of things (it does!), and coming up with how dates and years work within the universe of the book. I also spent the time with the part of the book I was stuck on and let it percolate around in my subconscious, and I know how to tie everything in together now.
Are you participating in Nanowrimo? If so, how do you approach it?