50K!

I haven't updated my progress with my novel as much as I had hoped, but I wanted to brag announce that I hit the 50K words today. This also means that I beat last year's record by one day. Considering what a whirlwind my emotions have been recently and the fact that I was writing out of my comfort with a children's fairy tale rather than an adult supernatural horror story, I consider this a shocking but delightful surprise. It is likely due to the fact that I'm having a blast writing something very different.

I have already confessed that my world-building is a bit of a mess, so I'll have a good deal of work to do on my second draft before I can even consider it sellable. But I tend to see my NaNoWriMo stories as a speed contest where I'm happy with any scatterings of quality that come out of it. I wouldn't normally ever try to write this many words of a novel in a typical month, and I would be spending more time getting the story straight.

For a November first draft, I am happy with how it has turned out. But I am also not done. The challenge is write at least 1666 words a day, and I intend to get that many words of the novel in until December 1st arrives. I also now want to attempt to beat my total word count record from last year, which was 66 938. There is a good shot at pulling that off, so I still have lots of novel writing to wrap up the month.

In December, I hope to use what was NaNoWriMo time towards the site a bit more, so that I can get in a groove where 2023 will be the best year ever for Beyond the Balcony as a movie review and news site (and occasionally personal pieces like this). I'll also be working on editing the novel and finishing it up, so that I can shop it around for editors in 2023.

I'll keep you updated on the progress of the novel and all my other creative endeavours in the coming weeks, months, and years.

Did you take the NaNoWriMo challenge this year, and how did it go?