NaNoWriMo!

So we're three days into the craziness that is NaNoWriMo.

My kiddo took off on a weekend trip on Friday morning, which left me free to write from about 8 o'clock...and boy, did I. My folks are visiting for this entire week and were scheduled to get in early Saturday evening, so I set a goal of trying for 5k on Friday and 5k on Saturday. A good day of writing for me is usually about 3 to 4k words, not including the editing I do on the stuff I wrote the day before. Well, I shattered that shit. Just destroyed my best, most hopeful expectations. I joined the word sprints on writeclub as soon as I sat down in the office and went from 8 a.m. to 7:30 at night without taking more than a 10 minute break. Then I had dinner. Then I got back to writing from 9 to just before midnight. Altogether, I created 15,329 lovely little words. Shocked, pleased, and completely exhausted, I collapsed into bed and snoozed until morning.

The next day, I had some chores to do first thing (making guest beds, taking care of the mastiff, cleaning the guest bathroom kiddo claimed to have already cleaned, but conveniently omitted the tub), but once those were out of the way, I parked it at the desk and jumped in on the very next word sprint. I was hoping to get another 5k words at least, but my parents left Florida two hours later than they planned, so I was actually able to add another 9,788 words, soaring past 25k right as they pulled into the driveway. My goal was to bank some words because of this visit and the Thanksgiving holiday, but I never imagined I'd get this much done in two days. I loved the focus the word sprints pulled out of me and think I'll start to write that way whenever I drop into a slump. I attribute the rest of the word count to the awesomely detailed outline I put together over the last month. It honestly felt a little like cheating. I just worked down my numbered plot points, making notes and tweaking things as I went along. I also gave up on the idea of editing what I wrote the following day pretty much immediately, as I wasn't about to take the time to edit 15k words in one sitting when I had so much other writing to get done.

I figure for the rest of the time my folks are here, I'd be happy with 2 to 3k a day, just so I can spend the rest of the time with them. Today, I got cooking around 7:30 (yay, daylight savings time!) and had about 2.6k done two hours later, so I called it quits and hung out with my parents for the rest of the day (though I did get some great ideas during the afternoon that I scribbled down). After the folks leave, I'll shoot for closer to 4k a day, as my novels are usually about 120k before I pare them down to a more manageable 90 to 100k. A first draft of about 75 to 80k by the end of November would work for me. Holy crap, am I going to have a buttload of editing to do at the end of this...