Half Way Through NaNoWriMo

It’s November fifteenth. The middle of National Novel Writing Month. I have written over twenty six thousand words. I am on track to write fifty thousand words this month. The problem? I don’t think this story has fifty thousand words in it. I’m not even sure that it has the twenty six thousand that I’ve already written. In short, it needs a lot of rework.

I know. I have said before on this blog that my job during NaNoWriMo is to write a draft, not a finished novel. The thing is, I think I have written myself into a corner. I have missed important plot points in my exposition so far and I have ended up rather far from the destination that I planned.

I am not proposing to ditch what I’ve already written. I just need to figure out how to get back on track. Perhaps I can find a point from which to pick up the thread and write an alternate story. The point of NaNoWriMo isn’t just to write fifty thousand words, especially if you have “won” once already. It is to have the discipline to make daily progress on a writing project and learn something new about the craft of writing while so doing.

That said, I’m stumped. I don’t know where to pick up the thread in my novel. I also have an early meeting tomorrow so I’m going to have to postpone my writing session to the evening instead of my usual first thing in the morning. Tomorrow promises to be a challenging day.


Sweet dreams, don’t forget to tell the ones you love that you love them, and most important of all, be kind.