Alright, so it’s not like I ran the Comrades or anything, but I’m four days in and a thousand words ahead of where I need to be on Nanowrimo.

I dream in keyboard shortcuts now, you guys.

A few things to note: 

Story structures are your best and most attractive friend, especially when writing under the gun. I’ve almost never used them before and I’m cursing myself now because they help you do so much good writing. I came up with a very light set of plot points for this story about three days before the first, in order to take my protagonist from her comfortable existence among the zombie children of  her home town to something truly otherworldly, and I’m happy to report they’ve already germinated into some wonderful but epicly bizarre little moments after I came back to write the story proper.

Dan Harmon’s story circle, which I actually want to write a piece on later this week, is really good for this. If you aren’t working to a structure, kudos to you, but I’m super duper converted.

Next, the question on most people’s minds by this stage: how’s that wordcount treating me? The requisite wordcount to stay on track for a 50,000 word novel by the end of the month is 1,667 per day. I’ve personally been keeping it higher by being as ridiculous as I can every time I write, in fear of getting caught up with something else at some point and not having enough time to come back to my work. 

This is all fair and well, but I keep putting off my writing until 9PM and racing to finish ahead of the clock. I’ll need to be more disciplined if I want to keep all my hair by the time December comes along.

I’ve always said writing’s too hard. It’s painful to sit down and try to pull clever or interesting things out of yourself and arrange them on a page like so many…page…baubels?

But it’s also irresistible and something you can’t force yourself not to want to do after you’ve given in to it. Like an ex who works at the same mall that  has your favourite smoothie shop in it, there’s no avoiding it. I can’t deal with the feeling of lost time when I consider having not gotten more words out, so I keep coming back to it to pull more out.

I guess what I’m trying to say is if it hurts, you’re doing it right. Or maybe we’re just untalented sado masochists, but the point is that we be unhealthy together.

Lastly, if you’re considering doing Nanowrimo, make sure to check out the Reddit Nano group for support and quiet, jealous comparison of your work to other far more talented writers.

And that’s it. It’s going well. My wife has been very supportive and I’m happy with Postcards from the Netherrealm as it’s turning out.