Starting word count: 64883
Ending word count: 67016
Total words: 2133

This is not about the writing, but this morning was a particularly lovely one. We had our first frost, so the ground looked like it was covered in this finest sheet of snow and the sky was this lovely, almost washed out set of pastels except right around the clouds where the pinks and purples were about two to three shades deeper. I actually dragged my slippers on and sat outside to write a little bit this morning despite the cold because I just couldn’t bear how lovely it was outside.

It was also nice to get away from my phone because wow I’ve been finding my phone even more distracting than usual lately.

I finished chapter 17 this morning and I did, thankfully, find a spot where I felt like I could stop and start chapter 18 — I have a clear vision for how the rest of that chapter is going to go and I’m hoping that, with a little bit of thought, I can manage to connect to the next milestone I have mapped out for myself in the draft. I still feel like I’m building in the dark, like I said the other day, but I’m a little more confident in putting the pieces together now. Or I’ve at least accepted the reality that no matter what it looks like when I finally finish, there will need to be fairly massive edits.

Whichever is true, it’s working for me. I cracked 40k written this month!

I feel like I’m now finally getting a handle on who my main character is, too — weird to say when I’m nearly 70k into the draft, but beyond my initial character sketches, I didn’t feel like I really had her voice. That’s definitely coming to me now and it’s been nice, hearing her start talking in my head with a little bit more… sense of herself. I’ve got some work to do with my other main character (it’s always harder to do that, I find, with the characters I’m not narrating from), but I think I have a better sense of him, too. I’ve been thinking about sitting down with my notebook again soon and really just writing out who they are — beyond the messy notes I already have — but I think I’ll save that for when I’ve actually finished the novel. Then I’ll know even more than I do now.

Sending you a lot of extra well wishes today. Let me know how it’s going for you 🙂 x

Let’s be friends on NaNo! Or listen to my project writing playlist!