I'm going to be doing NaNoWriMo again this year, though I'll be getting a late start since I wanted to wait until after the World Fantasy Convention ended. (It's really hard to work while at a con.) So today is really my first day of work!
That puts me behind a bit, but after writing so much, I've learned a lot about my novel writing and revising process; enough to know that I don't actually like writing the 1667 minimum words per day. I like to write more, and the reason for that is 1667 words is not a chapter for me. It's too short.
My chapters tend to be somewhere between 2000-3000 words (closer to the 2000 word end on first draft, as I'm definitely a put-in more than take-out sort of person when doing revision).
I could write less than a chapter a day, and in previous NaNos I did, but I discovered during revision that I had to make more edits that way, because I would forget details from the day before. So now what I do is write my chapter straight through until it's done, so I can manage its beginning, middle, and end in one go, keeping the entire "arc" in my head. And it's worked better for me.
This also means that it only takes me 25 days to hit the NaNo goal (probably less, because I'm not always writing the minimum--the chapter is whatever it requires) and I'll still finish by the time the month is over.
Since I've been dealing with cancer most of this year, I haven't had much chance to write, but now that I'm healthier again I'm hoping that I can kickstart my writing engine with a new book.
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