Week Two of National Novel Writing Month



National Novel Writing Month

I am three-fifths of the way through my unofficial National Novel Writing Month. This is how I went:

Day 12: I had a lot of fun creating an alien. Originally it was going to be a variation of an X-File grey, but by changing the POV character when it first appears, it became something much more original and aesthetically interesting.  I wrote 1719 words for the day.

Day 13: The words came express delivery. When I walked to town and back in the morning I spent most of the walk with notepad and pen in hand scribbling notes. When I got home I wrote a scene that involved a quick-fire, multi-layered conversation between a doctor, pilot, linguist, yobo and three aliens. I wrote 1778 words for the day.

Day 14: Many interruptions today, but I eventually wrote 1693 words.

Day 15: I wrote 1678 words to reach 25,911 words at the halfway point of the month.

Day 16: When I got back from my swim I spent the next hour writing notes. I outlined a better way to get to the end of the novel. I then wrote 1685 words for the day.

Day 17: A real struggle. My writing stalled as I tried to think of solutions to a plot problem. I ended up rejecting an easy solution and taking the harder one which will make the rest of the plot more complex. When I eventually started writing I thought I had no hope of making the daily target, but I did, writing 1679 words.

Day 18: More scribbled notes before I started. I now have a really good idea of how the novel will finish. Now I just have to sort out my pile of notes. I wrote 1721 words for the day.

It was a real struggle this week, but I got there. Three-fifths of the way through the month I have written 30,996 words which is just over three-fifths of the required words. This time last year I had written 33,561.

I am currently writing chapter seventy of the novel and I have written 136,700 words of it. I estimate that I have about 20,000 words to go.

New Article on Divine

In other news, I had a new article go up on DiVine this week. The article is about how to describe and refer to people with disabilities.

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