So it’s been one week since NaNoWriMo started and I thought I’d give an update of my progress. As of right now I am 11 words away from 15k (I was writing earlier and stopped at the end of a chapter which just happened to be 14,989 words), which puts me about a day ahead of par. I even managed this while taking a day almost completely off from writing (that was the 6th, the day Halo 4 came out). So all in all, it’s been a good week, word count-wise.
In terms of the story, I got off to a rough start. The first chapter is almost all description. When I started out I knew that a lot of details would be important, so I wanted to include everything. But I found it rather boring to write, which made it hard to sit down and type. Chapter 2 got a bit better when I finally introduced more characters, meaning I could now write dialogue. Chapter 3 was the point at which the plot slowly started to move. Chapters 4 and 5 were made up mostly of planning, with the end of Chapter 5 being the point where my protagonist needed more information. So she decides to go talk to the people she hates (the Gang).
That was where things really started getting interesting. My characters started surprising me with stories I hadn’t really thought out. I wrote one particularly heavy scene which I hadn’t expected, revealing what happened to my protagonist’s uncle (and also why she hates the Gang). And then a few pages later, one person I thought she hated (I’ve called him Danny) turned out to be her friend; they were just hiding it from his brother (Ryan). I didn’t know it at the time I started writing this novel last week, but it’s Ryan who is the main antagonist.
So now I’m starting Chapter 12. Chapters 6-11 have had the characters actually succeeding (so far) in getting away from Ryan and the Gang; they’re on their way back to Thunder Bay, which is where the zombies are. It’s been a lot of fun to write now that the characters have sort of taken on a life of their own. I’ve already got some plans should I decide to rewrite this once NaNoWriMo is over (but don’t worry, I’m not changing anything for this draft, just making notes on a spreadsheet!) I’m looking forward to what the next 35k words will bring.
Good luck to everyone else who is participating this year. If you want to watch my progress (or be writing buddies) you can find me here on the NaNoWriMo site. I’ll also be updating Twitter with my writing progress so you can also watch my Twitter feed for news about my novel.
An Acquaintance with Letters 