NaNo 2015 - Week 1

The first week is over.  The Elf's Prisoner is coming along at a good pace, both in-story and with word count.

The Stats:

• Words Written This Week: 12688
• Words Written Total: 12688
• Chapters Completed: 9
• On-screen Deaths This Week: 6
• On-screen Deaths Total: 6

I am ahead of pace.  I was able to get a day and a half worth of work on the first day alone.  The writing got split into two sessions.  The first was at midnight of the 1st.  The second was after leaving CanCon and going to the library write-in.  I managed to get about the same number of words, 1300 written in each session, so I wasn't pushing myself at either.  I've had two days where I didn't reach the daily goal of 1667 words, but the other days surpassed it.

In the story itself, I left the meager outline that I did have.  The outline was loose, to give me space and to get broad ideas down.  It doesn't count towards the total words, but it gave me a scaffold to work from.  I've left it.  The result, more time given to my lead characters.  I may have to work around a planned death; she doesn't want to die and I don't think I want my experienced character gone.  Looks like the kid will die instead.

Why does this year feel different?  The big difference is blogging.  Between my work with Lost in Translation and the weekly commentary for the serializations I'm doing, I'm writing about 2000-3000 words a week already.  Often, I spend an evening working on both.  I'm just now expanding that writing from one or two days a week to seven.  Will I keep this pace up?  Usually, the hardest part is around the 30 000 word mark, when the numbers aren't changing as much and the story starts bogging down.  Pacing is tough; lulls are needed, but too long a lull in the narrative can dissuade authors, let alone readers.  I'm hoping that the characters engage each other.  So far, that is working out.

One thing I am trying to add is a theme.  I don't care much for obvious themes; too many times, the story warps itself to maintain the theme to the point where the characters fall flat.  But, if the characters themselves buy into the theme, maybe it'll work.  If not, that theme gets dropped like a hot potato.

For this week coming, my goal is to get the main characters out on their quest, set up some clues towards the villain, and see if any romance blooms.  There's no guarentee on any of those, but with all the characters now in the same location, there's a better chance of at least one of those goals being reached.