Week 1 - The Panic Is Normal

Last night was day 7 of NaNoWriMo and so far I've been able to stay on top of my writing quotas.  There were a few days where I was forced to stay up late to pull it out, but at this point I'm very slightly ahead of the game.

Last Thursday, I think I was fighting off a virus or something.  I had a very hard time focusing, but I managed to still make goal.  So far my detailed outline has kept things on track.  It means I don't have to worry about what happens next, though I still have to sometimes figure out how I'm going to make it happen.

Last weekend I was hoping to hit goal early and take a break, maybe play a little DDO and do some favor grinding.  Something mindless to turn the brain off.  Instead I was persuaded to pull the chainsaw out and trim the trees since brush pickup is this week.  I also finally got around to mowing the thicket in the backyard where the faucet leaks.  By Sunday I had serious brain-fry and could barely focus enough to make goal.

To make matter worse I had an entire chapter that was all transitional scenes.  I did have some important ground to cover, I got to trickle out a little more character/cultural/setting background, but it was mostly about getting the characters from point A to point B to set up the next situation.  In fact I have often suspected I have a tendency to gloss over such things, just hit the important conflicts and move on--certainly last year's nano had much more action in it at this point--so I made myself develop those scenes more fully.  Hopefully I didn't overdue it.

I'm definitely going to need beta readers on this one.