Yep, it still feels weird to post about writing on this blog. But a little weird is fine, right?

I’m actually ahead in my word count – right now I’m at exactly 5,700, which I’m pretty sure is farther than I’ve ever gotten on the first and second days. Part of the reason I wanted to get ahead was because on Sundays I pretty much just want to sleep and watch movies after church. So tomorrow is taken care of! I’ve done way more outlining for this book than I’ve ever done for any of my writing. I took two or three whole days before NaNo started to just work out the details of characters and the storyline. And today I actually created an outline for what I was going to write. Just the fact that I have any outline at all is impressive for me – I have a bad habit of keeping everything in my head instead of putting it on paper. I’m totally seeing my outlining and plotting pay off, though! It’s so helpful to work through all the points of the plot, because as you go you realize different things about your characters and everything just starts to come together.

I also discovered today that it’s very helpful for me to write everything out with a pen and paper (that’s how I normally do it) but then type everything out and add to/rewrite parts. I know I shouldn’t edit right now, but especially on days like today where I was feeling a little annoyed with a few parts, it helped to tackle it immediately. Plus, I got about one thousand additional words out of that, so it must have been a good idea!

I’m taking Fridays off to give myself some extra time to write…but even with that I’m a little nervous about working and writing at the same time. I’m hoping I’ll be able to stay on track with both work and writing…this is the first year that I’ve had the usual workload during November. I think I took the month off last year, which was so nice! We’ll see how it goes.

If you’re doing NaNo, how were the first two days for you? Are you feeling good about your novel?