NaNoWriMo 2017: Day Sixteen

I remain on target, and have passed the halfway point with 27,142 words (and I plan on doing a little more this evening). Yet I can’t really say I’m loving this story.

Throughout the second week, I was finding it very difficult to muster enthusiasm as I sat down to fill the day’s writing quota. The fact that it’s a historical story might have contributed: I have done research, but sometimes I get bogged down by a detail that I’m not sure about. But the main reason was probably that the story wasn’t really going anywhere at that point, focussing more on exposition and the main character’s thoughts than actual action.

I like to think you learn something from every NaNoWriMo, and while it may be a lesson I’ve already covered in the past and since forgotten, I’ve learned that I’m more of a plot-driven author than a character-driven one. So I’ve made an effort to inject life into the story and plan out how the central mystery will unfold. This was fun at least: I ended up drawing a tree diagram of what the missing person has been doing, how the protagonist might uncover clues as to his activities and whereabouts, and the consequences that different stages of her investigation might bring. And then I turned these into a timeline, covering the months over which I already know the story takes place.

I’m not worried about not finishing. No matter how hard I’m finding the writing, I tell myself that I’d feel worse if I quit and broke my streak. But I do hope to have a bit more fun as I go along.