Rockin' along

I am thrilled to say that I am really rocking the novel this year.  Maybe it's that I have solid plans to publish this one; maybe it's the excitement and inspiration generated by things like using 1920s images for my characters and listening to a lot of 1920s music.  Who knows.  All I know is that I'm having my most successful NaNoWriMo ever.

Last night I broke 20,000 words.  I am very nearly halfway done with my 50k goal for November, and three days ahead of where I should be.  I'm also more than halfway through with my total word count goal for the novel, 80k, though there are times when I think it may end up being longer, maybe 90k.

There are times when I feel like I'm struggling, such as during the first 1,500 or so words last night.  But I'm finding that if I push through, everything falls into place.  Part of it is this particular novel, or perhaps more accurately, how much I'm feeling this particular novel.  If I just make myself keep writing, eventually it all starts coming together.

This is a glaring difference from previous years.  Every year since 2007, I've failed miserably — some years I hardly even got a word count at all.  Other years I started writing and couldn't keep up.  Even the one year I did win, 2006, it was by the skin of my teeth.  I finished my novel at just 100 words over 50,000, and that was after a superhuman effort to catch up.

But this year, I have hope that I will not only reach 50k, but also finish my novel (at around 80k), so that I can set it aside for a month or so before I start revisions in January!