Three-Day Novel Progress, Day One

I set a goal awhile back to hit NaNoWriMo’s 50,000 words for the three-day novel contest. While most people are measuring their progress in pages, probably because the three-day novel website mentions average page counts instead of word counts and because they’re writing in word processors, I’m writing in a text editor. No, it’s not emacs or vim. I’m staying out of the holy war for now. This meant that a head start would be fantastic, and I decided to write 20,000 words today. I hit that goal around ten tonight after nearly twelve hours of alternating writing and not writing (both for my brain and for my wrists). For those who are curious, I did a twenty-minute sprint with @NaNoWordSprints on Twitter at exactly midnight to honor my time zone’s start of the Three-Day Novel contest. I resumed writing at eleven this morning and started off strong with a 45-minute writing session followed by a fifteen-minute break. After that I continued by writing for thirty minutes and taking fifteen minute breaks in between sessions, stopping for meals and bathroom breaks. (Meals were longer breaks; bathroom breaks counted as part of a regular break.) During my breaks I could do whatever I wanted: read Twitter, read blogs, or research for my novel. I kept a couple of tabs open related to pertinent points for my novel and read over these during breaks when they became relevant. They’ll be relevant first thing tomorrow morning.

So, you’re wondering, what am I actually writing about? Given my lack of plot up to the last minutes last night, this is a very good question. Let’s start with what the story was going to be about. I started the story thinking it was going to be about the two roommate’s search for a new roommate. That would be a really boring story, though, as I realized when the ABBA-loving main character took a walk down the block in scene two (scene one involved her discovering that one of her roommates is moving out). That’s when I found out that the main character is also a ghost hunter, and she begins to wonder if the apartment is haunted. She discovers another building with a ghost, and she and her ghost hunter friends search for the ghosts. It’s a fun story so far, and I’ve been slinging words left and right.

Tomorrow’s plans include writing another 20k. Yes, two 20k days in a row. I must be insane. This will make Monday mostly clear for unexpected Labor Day plans (that I hope will not involve actual labor). Let’s do this.

I hit ctrl-s no fewer than five times while making this post. That’s what today has done to me.