November 15. Exactly halfway through the month. At least fifty thousand words are the target for the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) November event, “Write a novel in a month.” Thirty-two thousand words are behind me, sixty-four percent. The total collective word count for all the participating writers is 1,532,271,964. Time for a toast.
Before anyone (especially me) gets too impressed, I need to put all those words I’ve written in perspective. What happens is that after writing fifteen or twenty thousand words, I’ve forgotten a few key details. Yesterday I wrote a scene with one of my main characters, but every time I wrote his first name — Dan — it bothered me. Why had I originally chosen this name for him? It didn’t fit well with his last name or his personality, but the first rule of NaNoWriMo is not to go back and edit; I just kept moving forward. Last night before I fell asleep I remembered that Dan wasn’t the character’s name in early scenes. Ray was the first name I chose for him. The result is that in three scenes this guy is Ray and in two he’s Dan. He also changed his hairstyle.
One slip-up isn’t serious, but multiply this by at least ten (the reality is probably worse than this), and you’ve got the same person simultaneously in two different cities (keep in mind that I’m not trying to write sci-fi or fantasy), walking a dog, milking a cow, and speaking two different languages.
For these and more serious mistakes I suspect I’ll have to throw out many of my 50,000 words. In fact, when I finished today’s scene it occurred to me that it could all be a pile of crap. But now that doesn’t matter. As challenging as keeping up the pace is, I’m already wondering what I will do once the novel-writing event is over. How will I fill my days? Of course I’ll keep working on the book, but I actually find this daily two thousand word effort as meaningful — with a deadline — as anything I’ve done since I retired.
Still Life 
Ann, I admire how you do this but began to wonder how one counts words – do articles count, is this done electronically or is there some basic yardstick? I’m so old-fashioned I tend to think in terms of written pages, is there a number of pages that would equal 2000 words a day?
I learned that word counts is what publishers ask about. They’re looking for about 100,000 words. Word counts the words. 2,000 words is about 6 pages, 12-point type double spaced.
Wow, 6 pages sounds like quite a bit of time and writing. Nice going.
Ann, Bravo – I wish I was writing just two sentences a night! Tonight, I do remember an exercise that I found exciting. Not exciting to do but exciting to read afterwards. After writing each sentence you must begin the next sentence with the last word (or close to it). It inspires me to begin writing that journal again. Again, Bravo!
Great idea!
How about writting a novel in Spanish! That will fill your days! We can start lessons anytime:-)
I was thinking about starting Spanish lessons again. But I need to wait till December. My current project takes up a lot of my time in November.
I applaud you, you are ahead of schedule. I had to abandon my NaNo this year. I was asked to do a presentation this Sunday and had to do a lot of prep. for that as well as my photography classes. Oh well next time. Good for you though, well done.
hi, that’s a prissy transfer. There is some mistakes but the main is here.
Nice post!
I cant share this link : https://stillalife.net/2011/11/15/and-words-to-go-before-i-sleep
Am i doing it wrong ?
Elvin.
Leave the s off of http