I Made It!

I logged in at just over my goal of 30,000 words on the 29th. I had planned to write another 1,400-1,500 words yesterday, just to finish big, as it were, but when I sat down last night to write (after a hellish day of rewriting really, really stinky sixth-grade social studies copy), I just couldn't bear to put fingers on keys. But no matter--I'm now about 2/3rds of the way through the first draft, and I've established some pretty good writing habits. I don't think I'm going to finish it by year's end (although I do have Christmas week off, so who knows?), but I'll be close. Really close.

It was an interesting exercise, because I had only outlined it so far, and in all the years I had worked on it in my on-again, off-again fashion, I had worked my way up to just about the place where the outline degenerated into a list called "Things That Have to Happen." At first, I used it as a rough guide for proceeding in a chronological manner, crafting in-betweens to get me from one Thing That Has to Happen to the next. And that worked for a while. It even led me to a couple of new scenes that just up and presented themselves--fortuitously, I think. I hope. But after a while, that strategy just ground to a halt. I was losing interest in yet another evening of in-betweening. So... I started working on the remainder of the Things That Have to Happen. And that got me tapping the keys eagerly again.

I have Jeff to thank for that new strategy. It was a method he employed earlier this year, when he churned out a hefty first draft in a matter of a very few months. He didn't write chronologically. He came up with scenes and then fit them together, doing most of the in-betweening after he'd crafted and recrafted the major attractions.

Well, I still have a couple of Things That Have to Happen to write: the climax (the very BIGGEST of Things That Have to Happen) and the denouement. I'm going to save those, though, until I've done all the required in-betweening to get to where they occur. I'm going to add them chronologically.

It's been fun. It's been good practice. It's helped me acquire some much needed discipline.

Who knows? Maybe next year I'll have a second novel in the works... and I'll actually do the OFFICIAL NaNoWriMo thang!