NaNoWriMo 2022 – week 1 (almost) recap #nanowrimo #nano2022

November 5, 2022 by Julie Holmes, author 7 Comments

Ugh. My grand plan to actually start writing for NaNo on November 1st was a big case of Real Life saying “Ha! I don’t think so.”

Pretty sure it also asked someone to hold its beer while it showed me exactly how successful I’d be starting NaNo on the 1st day (not!). I almost–almost–decided to skip this year’s NaNo. Then I figured what the hell, might as well try it.

Sigh.

Complicated, of course, by the fact that honestly, I wasn’t really sure which project I wanted to work on (still not sure). I did spend some time reviewing the part of my project I’d already written for a prior NaNo, just to remind myself where I was going with it. And I did some stream-of-consciousness writing to both get some word count and work through a question about character motivation.

That was good; I avoided writing myself into a not-quite-plausible plot knot. There’s still the matter of not being quite sure where to dive into the story next.

Normally I write chronologically, by chapter: this happens, then that happens, then this other thing happens, then it’s the next day, etc., and however many scenes might be in the chapter. With this project, I decided it might work better to write each scene separately, since it has dual timelines. That way I think it’ll be easier to alternate the historical timeline scenes and the modern timeline scenes.

Which should also translate into making it easier to just jump back into the story, by letting me write whatever scene I feel like writing next. “Should” is the key word, here.

The whole point of NaNo, at least in my world, is to get back into a writing routine. Reset that habit of writing every day, or just about every day. Then I think back fondly to my days at my writing retreat at the Shire. Man, talk about having no distractions, and being able to do nothing but write without the call of chores to do or hours of TV news to try to ignore. Now that’s the way to write every day!

Needless to say, I’ve already warned hubs that I plan on doing two personal writing retreats a year at the Shire, one in spring before Memorial Day, and one in fall after Labor Day (it’s a big tourist area up there, where people have lake cabins and all the stuff that goes with that).

Anyway, I think I’ll be able to make the quota for Week 1 (crossing fingers). It won’t be pretty, or even make sense in some places, but hey, it’s still writing. Bonus for week 2: the company I work for recognizes Veteran’s Day as a holiday! So short week next week, and more time to keep up with the NaNos 🙂

Happy Writing everyone!

Hey, you! Get back to writing!

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