Well, mostly. I'm writing this post on Day 17 of the First Draft. As I mentioned last time, I can't help but compare this month's progress to last year's NaNo progress. Back then, I hit 50,000 words then after just three weeks. This time around, I've had six full zero-count days and at least two more days that were close enough to zero to be zero. By Day 16 I was behind nearly 15,000 words for the month.

But . . . behind what? Some arbitrary and meaningless schedule? Sure, it was a nice plan, but you can't plan creativity, right?

Ah baloney! Of course you can and that's what I did on Day 17 (which, at the time of this writing, isn't over). I had gotten stuck at a real sticky point and decided to solve it by ignoring it. Oh, I'll come back to it later, but the very act of typing "come back to this later" in the manuscript and moving on gave me a psychological boost. My gross word count today (which, at the time of this writing, still isn't over) was 6,723. My net word count was more like 5500 because I deleted a bunch of stuff too.

So here's hoping things keep heading this direction. I doubt I'll finish the first draft by Halloween, but that will just give me something to do during NaNo: namely cheat like I did last year and start the month with a manuscript in progress.

But who's counting?

I was looking at a comparison of my writing progress for this month versus where I was during NaNoWriMo last year. What a difference a year makes. And I don't mean that in a good way. Total word count is now 12,694, which isn't bad. But that's over ten thousand words behind this month's pace and less than half my word count during last year's NaNo.

Granted, this means absolutely nothing in the long run. What surprises me is that unlike last year, I actually feel like I have a purpose this time around. Last NaNo I was pantsing it, this year I'm plotting it. Last year I had no idea where the story was going. This year I know exactly where the story is going, and even have the soundtrack music already picked out for the movie's climactic scene.

But that ain't gonna happen if I don't get my behind in gear. These books just don't write themselves, you know! So guess what I'm going to do now as soon as I submit this post? That's right! I'm going straight to bed.

🙂

Day thirty-eight of PBWQ. Made up for some lost time tonight and the manuscript sits at the delightful word-count of 11,101. I have a feeling this time around it's going to end up around 80,000 words, so it feels strange to be pushing the 15% complete mark. My main goal this time around is to make sure the story doesn't drag. So I should probably stop and read what I've written so far, but that takes time away from the actual writing.

I should be at 14,888 words today. The one big advantage PBWQ has over NNWM is (you guessed it): October is 31 day. That means only 1613 wpd instead of NaNo's blistering 1667 wpd pace.

Have a good weekend.

I'm three days into the fast and furious writing phase. I'm taking a slightly different approach this time too; which I can probably sum up as: "not getting too hung up on every last word." I've done that in the past and it always leads to what we call in the software development world as "premature optimization." In short, it means you're polishing something up before you even know if you'll even need it. I've wasted countless hours on words that will never see the light of day. It's paramount I get the story structure solid first. It's like working in clay: throw a lump on the wheel then begin to shape it gradually. Each pass gets closer and closer to your vision. In no case do you perfect the eyeball first and then figure out what shape the head is going to be.

Hope it helps!

October. OCTOBER! We'll ignore the discussion about how September only lasted about eight days this year and instead focus on the fact that the second month of the first-ever PerBoWriQua begins today. If you're following the traditional pattern (and by "traditional" I mean "the one I just made up at the end of August") then all your outlining, planning, and synopsizing is done and you are ready to begin the first draft of your manuscript today.

If you're like me, you didn't get any of that finished. So today's the day you're going to take your good, yet incomplete, plans, and wing it. That said, I still feel positive, though admittedly a bit nervous. I always get nervous at the beginning of a project. I'm not sure why. I'd love to tell you how I feel at the end of a project because, well . . . my projects never end.

Here's hoping to break tradition.

As of the time of this writing, we're now about an hour and a half into the fall season in the northern hemisphere. (And did you catch that full harvest moon last night?) This means September is almost over. This also means the first month of PBWQ is almost over.

Month One, for me, meant pure R&D. It was about "getting it together" and pretty much nothing else. I've plowed forward into dense forests before only to find myself completely lost and out of energy. I swore I wouldn't let that happen this time around. I was going to do my homework and have the clearest blueprint ever before writing Word One.

Overall, I am happy with the progress. Things feel like they're coming together and, in spite of the fact that I don't have everything completely nailed down yet, this still feels right. I managed to spend some time on it even while out of town the last several days.

Let's just hope this translates into a good story. Because all the planning in the world isn't enough to make a book actually enjoyable.