Camp NaNoWriMo Day 10: The Slog

Well, the first week of or so of Camp Nano has been a little rough.

The first three days went well. I got a few scenes written and edited, then was able to update the NaNoWriMo site with the edited word counts.

Then Saturday, the fourth, was rough. I only wrote 52 words, unedited. Then on Sunday, I had a bad headache that lasted a few days. Yesterday I had a midterm exam and needed to take the time to study. In general, things have been rather rocky.

After the second day, I changed my monthly goal to take off some stress. The change was from 30,000 words for the month, or 1,000 words per day, to 18,000 words for the month, or 600 words per day. I got this by taking the 500-ish pre-edited words I had written on the first day and the 700-ish pre-edited words from the second and getting a 600 word average. This did not keep me from getting stressed out.

Luckily, I have been writing a little each day since the first three and am telling myself that that’s okay. It’s even okay if I don’t get any words written. I always feel bad when I fail to write anything while working on a project, but it is okay. As long as I keep writing at a later point, I will get things done.

Otherwise, I am a little worried about the story itself. It feels a bit boring, though that is normal. This is about the time with my writing that I slowly end up giving up on the story or try making a lot of changes that slow the momentum in my writing or make me want to restart the whole process. But, I made enough major story changes for this draft based on the last one. I will note any other major changes I’d like to have and put them in the next draft. I need to finish this one as is.

So, the goal for today is to edit what I’ve written since day three, then try to hit the 600 word goal with today’s writing.

For the rest of the month, I’ll try to hit the daily goal and not stress out when I don’t. I need to just keep writing and editing until I get to the end of this draft. It might be a bit of a slog, but if I don’t do it, then I’ll just be stuck in a never-ending cycle of stopping or restarting projects.