I knew this NaNoWriMo was going to be a little different, mostly because of how busy I am compared to the previous years I participated. But it was a real struggle to keep up with word counts!
Most of this can be attributed to the lack of real time I had (thus the lateness of this blog post). Between working and goats and building a house, there isn’t a lot of time lying around.
I started getting into a groove and making progress when I began writing during my breaks at work. Even if it was on my ten minute breaks, I could get out a few hundred words if I really focused. That helped a lot — probably because it got me in the mindset and routine of really using any time I had.
Also, I was really struggling with my main character and writing in third person limited. This is the first time I’ve written something long in third person limited. I’m used to first person’s ability to get right up in the character’s thoughts, and felt really distanced from my main character. Also, maybe because of that or maybe because I’m writing a bit of a selfish character… I didn’t like my main character much until lately.
But the plot — and her development as a character — has picked up a lot more lately, and that’s been helping with churning out the daily word counts.
So while I lagged behind the first week, I seem to be getting my groove the second week. I had Thursday off as well, which really helped me catch up. Since then I’ve been staying above the needed word goal for each day.
I hope everyone’s first two weeks of NaNoWriMo have been going well!
It sounds like life is absolutely crazy for you right now! Don’t forget to give yourself a bit of credit too for powering along when your juggling a million other things… Especially when you’re killing your word count anyway! I’m looking forward to hearing more about this new novel – and also the goats :p I love the pictures you put up of them! 🙂