I've not nothing...Maudlin Monday

Yup, empty brain. And I didn’t do much of anything over the weekend.

Except write 8600 words!

The pressure is on, people, with the end of the month four days away. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) <link> in which one writes fifty-thousand words in November. That’s enough words to make a short novel if one ended there. But most people I know who do NaNo use it as a starting point, getting the first half or two-thirds of a story on the page. They’ll then finish the story on their own time.

Let me tell you, getting the beginning of the story sorted and on paper (or screen) and doing so quickly (only one month – most books take several months if not years), is huge. Even if one ends up chucking half the words, the basic story is written.

Some have complained about NaNo being held in November, alongside US Thanksgiving, Black Friday madness, and the start of holiday preparations. It certainly tests one's dedication to one's craft. If you do the math, 50,000 divided by 30 equals 1667 words per day. If I’m in the zone and know where I’m heading, I can whip that off in a couple hours. If one misses a day of writing, one's daily goal increases to make up for the shortfall. Miss a few days and, well, you get the idea.

I missed a few days last week when we were taking care of house stuff and other business. Hence the weekend of mad typing. I haven’t caught up but I’m close enough to make it, by midnight on the 30th. Eep, I’d better get to it.

Do you work well under pressure? Or does your task seem so daunting and impossible that you seek refuge in the land of Pinterest and YouTube?

Cheers!