Let me be brief with the bad news: I'm behind. Almost impossibly behind. As in, a little bit over ten thousand words behind. Oy. Mostly this is because it has been impossible to make the minimum every single day: life happens.
And I feel guilty just typing these few lines, since I could be working on the novel instead. How many words is this post? A hundred? Two? You wasted two hundred words on a stupid post to yer stupid blog? Yeah, that's what I thought! Now get back to work!
However, it is a nice consolation that I'm only about five thousand words behind Chris Baty himself. If even the standard-bearer of the event can fall behind and still catch up in the end, then dammit, I can fall behind and still catch up too!
And I'm pretty sure that is exactly what will happen. Because here's the good news: I'm still having a great time, and this story is showing no signs of slowing down. I plan to write another thousand words today, but even if I did no more work on it until tomorrow, I could still make it to 50k by November 30th, provided I wrote about 2,500 words a day.
Which is less impractical than it sounds.
How's that? I've discovered the power of "word sprints": Set a timer for half an hour and write as fast as you can, and don't check your word count until time's up. (When the timer runs out, it's break time, and you're allowed to be neurotic on breaks.) Invariably, you discover that you've written way, way more than you thought you possible in half an hour.
My theory is that the problem lies in checking the word count all the time. If you constantly check your word count, then you're constantly breaking your involvement with the story you're making up. Force yourself to avoid checking it, and all of a sudden you're in the flow. There have been times when I just kept working past the timer.
I've got so much more I could write about this project, but I really ought to get back to work on it. Here's to catching up!

