So, the crazy first week of NaNo is complete and I did pretty well, especially considering that I started NaNo with 25 scenes outlined in VERY rough draft, almost all of them involving the second part of a three part book :P.

My word count currently stands at 22,458. I am almost halfway exactly through the first section of the book. It’s slow going at times, but overall, the story’s coming together.

I just completed my second 48-hour marathon since NaNo began, the first one netting just over 8,000 words and the second just over 7,000 words. On the days in between, I only missed the minimum for NaNo once, and that was by 14 words. Yeah, I know, I should have just tucked something in there, but it was the end of the scene and why put in garbage I’ll just have to clean up later.

If I continue at the rate I’m currently maintaining, I should reach 50,000 on November 17th. However, that rate reached a high of 4,046 and is now averaged down to 2,807 and continues to drop. I do have to maintain a bit of padding because I have family coming for Thanksgiving and the weekend before that as well. I may be able to sneak in some writing in the early morning on those days, but I have no way of knowing. It’ll help if I’m smart enough to synchronize my laptop, because my study becomes a guest bedroom when people with cat allergies are expected :).

Another interesting statistic…my outline which was just under 6,000 on November 1st has grown to 10,346. This includes character notes, a map of the ground floor, and other relevant world building on top of the actual outline.

Right now I have a total of 32 scenes outlined (one of which is still rough draft that I hope will flesh out before I get there and am stumped) for an estimated 44,916 words. I’m also hoping to add a few more scenes into the outline before I run out and still have words to add. I do have some 17 additional scenes roughed out, but they’re very rough.

Is this my normal NaNo process? Absolutely not. I rarely get to focus 100% on NaNo any more, but usually my NaNo novel is already outlined and clicking in my head all the way through so I can have the pleasure of writing without having to consider all the other aspects. This year has been crazy in many respects, and doesn’t seem to be getting any easier. That said, I was facing a year without a single novel written. I might still be in that state because this novel is going to end up significantly longer than 50,000, but I’ll be a heck of a lot closer than if I’d given NaNo a pass.

P.S. The book is now titled Coma Wedding. It is still a working title, and one that has little connection to how the story came out, but there you go. That said, it’ll still be filed under cm because otherwise I’d have to edit everything :p.