After two weeks and 50,011 words, the garbage first draft of The Fate of the Immortal’s Assistant is done. My official 2017 NaNo is done.
Now, the plan was for me to start on The Coop Run right on the heels of The Fate of the Immortal’s Assistant and I still intend to do that.
But not at the same pace.
By the first weekend of NaNo, I decided that I needed to pick up the pace so I could be done by the 14th. For some reason I had it in my head that this was the plan all along. Sometimes I’m dumb. Anyway, I wrote 5,000 words on Saturday to get my word count up to where I wanted it to be and then spent the next week writing 3,500 words a day instead of 3,000. On the next Saturday, I wrote 4,500 words to guarantee that I’d finish by Tuesday.
Yesterday, I wrote less than 3,000 words to finish the first draft and hit my 50,000.
I’m tired now.
The past two weeks, it felt like my life revolved around this NaNo. I think part of that is because of how difficult the story was to get started and the challenge of trying to write that many words in a day when I only have a few hours every afternoon in which I MIGHT not be interrupted. It felt like my focus was down to a pinpoint, just totally tuned in to NaNo.
This isn’t the first time I’ve done NaNo in 14 days or less. I did two novellas back-to-back in 12 days back in 2013 (while I was working 3 jobs, no less) and I did two novellas back-to-back again in 14 days in 2014. After both years, I swore I would NEVER do it again. And yet, here I am once again. Finishing 50,000 words in two weeks. And I planned to do it! Thought it was a good idea!
I’m not very good at keeping certain promises, I guess.
After the draining experience that was the last two weeks writing The Fate of the Immortal’s Assistant, I’m going to take it easy on the word count for The Coop Run. Writing at least 1,000 words a day will give me at least 15,000 words by the end of the month (give or take, depending on how deep my food coma is on Thanksgiving) and that’s a decent start. I normally don’t like to write anything new during December because it’s such a hectic month, but I’ve laid down this gauntlet and I’m going to finish it. Hopefully, after a few days of only writing 1,000 words, I’ll feel the urge to pick up the pace.
But right now, I feel like 1,000 words will be fine.
Kiki Writes About... 
One thought on “Writing–So That’s NaNo 2017 Done”