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?

I did and won NaNoWriMo three years in a row, and I can’t say enough about it and the people who organize it every year! It is the biggest thing that has helped me in my own writing. Being forced to sit down and write so much in just one month, getting and reading all the pep talks, and interacting with other people in the forums has grown me each year and I can see that I’ve grown through it! I thought this year that I’d sit this one out, though, considering the size of my workload and the fact that writing hasn’t been on my to-do list this year. But then October came around and I got that urge to write that I seem to get every fall…and when the NaNoWriMo site sent me an email saying “Your novel wants you to write it,” I was like, well, I guess I have to do it now. ;)  So I’m going to be writing next month, and I’ll be taking Fridays off so I can hopefully get enough writing done to win.

My book is one that I started two years ago – it’s an allegory of Israel, during the time of the prophet Jeremiah, put into a somewhat middle-ages kind of world. I wanted to write it because it’s easy compared to my historical fiction novel about the Civil War – because hey, you don’t have to do any research to write an allegorical fantasy! And let me tell you, research took up 70% of my time with my other book. I wanted to take a break from all of that. So I’ll be working on it again this year – this time writing a prequel that will end up being the first half of the final book. It’s been fun because I can let my imagination run – I’m not tied down by very much! I’ve been able to use the general story of Israel’s falling away from the Lord and their eventual restoration as a basic outline, and I’ve based one of my main characters on Jeremiah.

I feel like posting this is a little random, considering that writing is almost never the forefront of any of my blog posts. But I wanted to share a little bit as my November will be filled with all of this!

Are you a writer? Are you doing NaNoWriMo?