NaNo 2018 - Week 2

Last week, I got off to a slow start.  With the first full week, counted Monday to Sunday, have things changed?

Yes.

I ended last week using the first library write-in to not just catch up but get a little ahead, by 3/4 of a day, or 1272 words.  That's a small buffer, though, one that would be wiped if I ran into problems inside or outside of NaNo.  That meant making sure I wrote each night this past week.  The good news, though, is that I did.  It took me a few days to get back up to full speed, but I did do just that.  At the end of the week, I managed to get a full day's worth of writing extra, which makes for a far better buffer.

Numerically, things are good.  Narratively, things were looking thin.  I have characters.  I have vague ideas of where things are going.  But the first multipart episode wound up going in the weeds a few times.  I had to take time to figure out the why of the plot, which delayed the writing of the plot.  After a few searches, mostly on the American Civil War, I figured out what was going on in the background enough to let my characters play havoc with the plot.

The end of that plot meant figuring out where to go next.  I hadn't thought that far out.  If 2015 was bad for being prepared, 2018 is a disaster.  I didn't get a chance to think through potential arcs for the serial.  Ottawa's wonderful Municipal Liaisons, though, had other ideas.

Ottawa NaNo participants have been getting a leaflets to help track progress for years, from before I was an ML for a couple of years.  One of the great motivators discovered in the past is stickers.  Sounds silly, but being able to earn a sticker has gotten more words written in Ottawa than anything else.  The leaflet includes a bingo card, with bragging rights the main motivator to fill it.  This year, the theme is weddings, whether eloping or formal.  And that's where I found inspiration.

No, none of the characters are going to get married, at least not yet.  The bingo cards had two interesting boxes, "Vegas" and "Elvis".  From there, zombie Elvii threatening Las Vegas.  It's a leap, but it's there.  Why?  /Heaven's Rejects/ isn't supposed to be that serious, despite what I wound up doing for the second mission.  This is a story that doesn't always go for a deep meaning, not when the weird will do.  A bunch of zombies shuffling down the Las Vegas Strip in rhinestone coveralls?  And I can do anything I want to a zombie.  It's already dead!

Of course, that means I need to start thinking ahead to what my cast will do after that.  Zombie Elvii won't take up 30k words on their own.  They do let me put off the work needed for a day, though.  That's all I need.

If you want to follow my process, you can check my stats page over the month and see how I'm doing compared to where I should be.