Word count today: 936

Total word count: 13,973

Today marks 20% of November gone, and I'm 28% percent of the way to the goal. Today I wrote less than the target daily minimum of 1667 words (for the first time, I think). Most days I've written more, and yesterday I was right on the money. It's getting late, and I need to go to bed.

It was a long day; I worked into the late afternoon at the office We went to the library's big used book sale after dinner, and Stacey and I had some work to do on an upcoming fundraiser at Julie's school. Then, like the brilliant mook I am, I decided to transfer all my NaNoWriMo posts to a separate blog to de-clutter the Joe Convert site. I wasted too much time trying to get a custom template to work (it didn't), and finally started writing about the time I should have been turning out the light. I'm happy I got something written, though.

I'm finding myself looking forward to spending a little time with these characters every night. I have at least a rough idea of where the story's going; one cool aspect of this is how plot elements I've laid down end up getting used to advance the story in ways I wouldn't have imagined. My grandmother wrote potboiler romance novels to pay the bills during much of her adult life, and she used to talk about how the characters took on a life of their own. I'm starting to see that with these characters. I can see where the plot was forced early on, but now it seems to be settling into more of an organic rhythm as I get to know the characters and understand what motivates them. I still don't think you'll ever be spilling coffee on this book at Barnes & Noble, but I'm learning a lot about how to write a story with big arcs. That's one element of trying to write a book that has always seemed the most daunting.

Oh, and the NaNoWriMo folks are right; the best way to write a book is just to make yourself sit down and do it. I've able to kind of power through plot and pacing problems just by continuing to move forward. If I were writing this book in hopes of having it published, I can see where I'd jettison some pretty big stretches I've written, but the key is not to do that until after the first draft is done. I'm only six days into this, and it's already been an extremely rewarding and useful excersize (not to mention sleep-depriving).