If you don’t know about NaNOWriMO and/or don’t understand why I would be doing it, especially after the recent controversy, please see my previous post: https://arrowmakerbooks.com/2024/10/31/nanowrimo-2024-why-im-taking-the-challenge-despite-the-ai-controversy/.
Legend has it that writing 50,000 words in 30 days is difficult. This time last week, it sounded difficult, and I highly doubted it was something I could do.
Today? I’m wondering if I’m stopping as soon as I’ve reached my daily target and could do more. Here are my figures for the week:
| Day | Daily Words | Running Total | Running Target | Running +/- |
| 1 | 1682 | 1682 | 1667 | +15 |
| 2 | 2247 | 3929 | 3333 | +596 |
| 3 | 1885 | 5814 | 5000 | +814 |
| 4 | 1841 | 7655 | 6667 | +988 |
| 5 | 2046 | 9701 | 8333 | +1368 |
| 6 | 1770 | 11471 | 10000 | +1471 |
| 7 | 1686 | 13157 | 11667 | +1490 |
| 8 | 1712 | 14869 | 13333 | +1536 |
| 9 | 1699 | 16568 | 15000 | +1568 |
To keep up with my daily progress, follow me on Twitter or Facebook, links in the menu above.
It’s worth stating that I’m a plotter; I have all the beats planned for every chapter, which certainly makes it easier than if I was having to repeatedly work out what happens next. Without my detailed plan, I wouldn’t have dreamt of attempting this challenge because, historically, I’ve been a slow writer. My inclination was to make the first draft as good as possible because I don’t like editing, and the better the first draft, the less editing is required. But after scrapping a couple of first drafts for varying reasons, I’ve come to realise it’s not worth the additional effort up front. Plus of course, I was never going to reach the 50,000 word target in 30 days if I worked at my old pace.
That’s not to say my first drafts are now a mess. I’m still putting words onto the page that I’m happy with, and have had some ideas I really like, but I’m no longer obsessing over whether every individual word is the best it can be. That comes later.
It’s taken some self-training to get out of the habit of editing as I go along, but it has worked. On day one of the challenge, I averaged 7 words per minute. On days eight and nine, I averaged 12. That’s the difference between it taking 4 hours to meet my daily target versus two and a half hours. And two and a half hours a day is mostly manageable for me, despite working a full-time job.
There’ll be many authors who struggle to find that time to write every day, and I have a newfound respect for their efforts to complete the challenge anyway. If you’re doing any of the writing challenges taking place during November, leave a comment and let me know how you’re getting on.
Tune in next week when the wheels will have fallen off and I’ll be 3,000 words behind the target.
Arrowmaker Books 