NaNoWriMo Day 4 and 5: Signs of life

On Day 4 of NaNoWriMo I wrote zero words, going 0-4 for the first four days and leaving me with a deficit of 6,668 words–a positively devilish amount to catch up on (ho ho).

My plan today was to go to the usual write-in at Waves in sunny downtown New Westminster (where during the other 11 months of the year it’s known as, well, The Other 11 Months) and do a good bit of catching up by reviving my unfinished 2013 novel, Start of the World (definitely a working title).

Good news: I did indeed write, putting together 2557 words. This gives me a deficit after five days of 5778 words. If you divide that over the remaining 25 days, I would need to write an additional 231 words per day, which seems pretty easy when looked at this way. So I should be good as long as I keep up a slightly above average pace from here on out.

But here’s the surprise twist: I didn’t work on Start of the World. Instead, I continued work on my 2014 NaNo novel, Road Closed. I added 50,000 words to the current word count total, bringing it to 120,242 words, then started back on it.

I’m not sure if this is the right thing to do, a good thing to do or something else. It is clearly a thing to do because I’m doing it. Tomorrow I’ll decide if I want to keep doing it. I’m not sure there’s 50,000 more words in this novel but you never know. I could channel my inner Stephen King and just not leave out anything at all, writing a kind of complete and uncut edition right from the start. Smothering my inner editor with a pillow. Not killing my darlings, but nurturing them and encouraging them to procreate. And other assorted weird analogies.

Anyway, it was nice to write again.

We had twelve people in attendance, but the table (which mysteriously moves every week) only seats eight, so multiple people had to sit on the floor. I’m betting some of them will arrive earlier next week to indulge in the luxury of writing while sitting in a chair.

Leave a Comment