NaNoWriMo 2022 Day 25

I’ve devoted this week to prep, which puts me at least four days behind on word count. I have to decide how much I care about hitting 50k, because it’ll take a hard push to get there — and I still want to do other things that will take mental energy, like attending an IndieWebCamp popup this weekend, and finishing a small freelance gig I picked up this week.

Part of me wants to say fuck it on purpose because I’m pissed at the unsustainable approach NaNo promotes. It’s vital that I do not burn myself out because I plan to keep up the pace during December, with the hope of finishing the first draft by the end of the year (OK let’s be honest it’ll be January).

I have now outlined the next four chapters, so that should produce about 8-10k of words that shouldn’t be too hard to write — but I need 17k more words to hit 50k. I’ve been stumped on how to accomplish my midpoint action, and I’m butting up against that. Hopefully over the next few days I’ll have a brilliant realization about how to get them from point A to point B. I’ve set it up so it can be glossed over in a few exposition paragraphs, but I still need some explanation. I’m probably over-thinking it and worst case will resort to “and they escaped through the sewers” 😂

Every time I hit a wall, it’s because I don’t know something. Brainstorming or outlining — taking a step back and breaking it into smaller, tangible pieces — makes a huge difference. So even though spending the last five days outlining might put me behind on the official NaNo word count, it’ll still have been worth it from a storytelling standpoint to write words that move the story forward and have emotional richness, and to not bash my head against trying to invent all this stuff *while* I’m writing.