Uncanny Vale

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of Erin Wilcox

Writing-Wise

National Novel Writing Month: Day 19

I’ve had some moments of doubt today. I must have crossed from thinking to overthinking, because everything I was doing suddenly seemed trite, the whole project a loss, etc. But damn it, I still had a word count quota, so I shoved those thoughts aside and got to work. I’m at 32,090 words, with some thoughts about what I need to address in my A plot tomorrow. Part of my concern is that the subplot is overpowering the A plot right now. It’s probably because I’ve thought through all the connections for the subplot more over the last few days. So tomorrow I’ll switch my focus back.

National Novel Writing Month: Day 18

The handy NaNoWriMo website includes all kinds of stats to help participants gauge their progress. Today, I climbed back to meet the “on track” line of total words, broken down by the average 1667 words per day needed to complete 50K by the end of the month. But statistics are boring, right? So I’ll just say yay, I’m back on track! I think this novel is probably going to need more outdoors scenes like the one I just finished writing. There’s a whole espionage element, and a bureaucratic element.

National Novel Writing Month: Day 17

Got in about 1,200 words in a couple of hours. That’s all the time I have today. I’ll make the rest up this weekend. Again, I leaned on the support system that NaNo provides. At such time as I have a teensy bit of extra cash, I will be donating some to the cause. It’s awesome and I want it in my life all the time. For the writing, I took the story to a scene that I thought was going to be in a warehouse, but then I decided I had too many similar settings so I took it outside. This ends up being a significant switch, changing the feel of everything.

National Novel Writing Month: Day 16

Somebody crossed the halfway mark tonight with 25,541 words. Happy writer dance time! Woohoooo! The number of words in my to-be-written column is actually smaller than the number in my already-written column. That is so weird. Of course, now that this is feeling so very possible, I would like to up my game a bit. There are so many, so very many craft tools that I learned at the Odyssey Workshop this summer. Some of them could be employed immediately.

National Novel Writing Month: Day 15

I’m at 23,597, which means that tomorrow I should hit the midpoint. I’m going to go ahead and rejoice when I earn my badge for 25K. NaNo is not an easy challenge, but all the support that’s in place really does make a big difference. Today I had an okay morning with 350 words in a half hour. Then I spent an hour or so in the evening researching something that didn’t lead to any tidy conclusion. This left me frustrated, and I had absolutely no taste for the work left before me, another 1650 words starting at 11:00 p.m. It occurred to me that I might just go to bed.