NaNoWriMo Week 2 Recap

Remember how I said last week, in the week one recap, that it's best if you have a cushion of words? I proved that to myself this week until I hit Saturday and wrote all of the words. Okay, maybe not all of the words, but I got to 30K in my total words. I'll explain that in a second, but this is how week two normally goes for me. I feel crappy and then, all of a sudden, I get a burst of inspiration and I write like I have never written before. Are all the words good? Nope. Maybe they're better this year, but they're not excellent yet. Remember - we're not going for excellent here. We're going for words on the page.

Also, if you're wondering where you should be right now, it's 23,333. On Tuesday, you're supposed to have 25,000 because it's the 15th and that's the halfway point. If that seems like a lot and you are behind, then I highly recommend going to write-ins. I recommend visiting the Word Wars, Prompts, and Sprints forum and seeing if you can find something that helps you there. My other recommendation is that you do not throw out any words. Say your novel is going badly and you want to start over. That's fine but don't just delete what you've already written. Start a dump file, dump the words that you don't want anymore in your novel, and then start fresh. It's a bit of a rebel thing but it might help you mentally.

As always, back up your work - Google Docs, email, OneDrive - just back up your work so you don't lose it. Keep on writing, even if you're only managing a small bit at a time, as it's more than what you had the day before. Maybe even the week before or the month before or the year before. But one word in front of the other guys. We got this.

Ugh, Week 2...

I'm just going to say it. Week two of NaNoWriMo always sucks. Always. It always happens that, this week, I feel horrible and I write like a slug. Sometimes I'm able to push it off until week three, but not this year. The good news is that I'm writing. I am always writing a small bit but I'm not getting anything completely done. I'll probably push through this weekend and try to write all of the words. But right now? I just feel horrible.

Part of it is the election. I'm not going to lie and say it's not effecting me, because it is, but that's not all of it. Some of it is the fact that I'm at that part of my novel where I'm like "why?". Why am I writing, who is going to read this, is it going to matter, and so on and so forth. I'm usually farther along in the book before this hits. I'm only in chapter six. Bah. However, the reason I'm writing this book right now? The characters keep on bugging me and I feel like I'm writing something that I want to read. The heck with everyone else, this is my book and if I'm the only one (aside from Erin the amazing editor) who reads it, then ta-da, I did it. One of the things about writing is that you're sometimes writing the story that you want to read and you pick up all the other writers along the way.

So, yeah, if you're feeling like you just want to give up? DON'T. JUST DON'T. Push through this hard part. You'll get through it. You will. Just keep on writing and let the bad words come. Let the horrible words come. The most important things is that you're getting words onto the page. That's the best thing that you can do.