Just One Day...

I heard of National Novel Writer's Month a year or two ago, but I didn't have the guts to try writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. This year, a friend and I tried to practice in April. Her practice in April succeeded, but my practice story broke down in April. As I described it to another friend, my story didn't break down in April because of "writer's block," it broke down because of "writer's asteroid."

But I have overcome writer's block this past month by launching a practice story on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007. I also set up a spreadsheet on my computer and set up calculations to tally up all my word counts and tell me how much progress I had made. My deadline to finish a 50,000 word novel was this Wednesday, July 4th, 2007.

I spent last week consistently behind the recommended quota of 1,670 words per day. Then on Thursday night last week, I overcame a 4,000 word deficit and stopped in the wee hours of the morning over quota.

This week, I consistently remained above quota. Last night I finished the story with more than 50,000 words. Today, though I applied a few finishing touches, I remained above quota the whole time. I have reached my goal.