NaNoWrimo Week 3

Right off the bat, it seems some of my friends are still a bit confused as to what this all is. Let me explain… no, no time to explain, let me summarize:
NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month (www.nanowrimo.org for more details). The concept here is to produce a 50,000 word short fiction novel in the month of November.

That said, I am now squarely in week 3 of this challenge and am finding that at 31,034 words down I am also encountering those week 3 doubts. I am sure that this novel is utter rubbish that any 3rd grader with a mind for story telling could write. I didn’t believe thejamez when he said I’d get to that point back around the end of week one. I figured that I knew it was bad, but it wouldn’t be the worst thing ever written. Silly me. I am up to my eyeballs in doubt. Luckily, I have done enough reading over the course of this ‘experiment’ that I know this is exactly what –everyone– encounters during week 3, so my hope is not lost.

The words are more difficult to find now, in day 18. My daily word counts are still barely making grade, and are taking longer to obtain. I’m sticking with it none-the-less. I’m nothing if not stubborn. Still, I feel like I am reaching to push the story along. I have the deep sense that this first draft, once completed at the end of the month, will have a very short existence in its current form, and will hopefully not resemble anything close to what it is now, once I am able to focus in on editing next month.

I just need to continue trudging through the words and not pay attention to my brain; just build the count so I can move past the doubt and into week 4. Of course this weekend will be the toughest yet. Since I won’t be in a position to put down many words between the 26th and the 30th, I am hoping I can get to 50k by noon on the 26th. But, that means ending 4 days early, when I am already a day or two behind the curve.

All in all, it should be an interesting week between now and next Wednesday.