National Novel Writing Month is a grand adventure . The challenge is to write 50K words toward a novel, which amounts to about 1.7K words per day. The way I write, that's 3 typed, single-spaced, 12-point, 1" margin pages.
When someone suggested I give it a shot, my first thought was, "Are you kidding me?" I didn't think I could keep up with the pace, what with the hours I keep for work. So far, though, I'm actually a touch ahead of schedule.
I had to make some changes to the way I write. There's no way I'd have time to write it by hand, which I normally do as a concession for a wrist injury many years ago, then type it in, so I'm composing at the computer. That means I have to take a lot of breaks so I don't blow my wrist apart again. Taking breaks means I can't just get the idea and go with it. I have to stop for a few minutes without losing track of where I was.
It's working out, actually. Hammering out the ~1.7K words per day is taking about 1.5-2 hours. I really can't say it's my best writing, but the whole purpose of editing is to straighten out all those irritating little glitches.
One week down ... 3 to go.
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