NaNoWriMo Day 6

The novel is coming along. I have no idea from one scene to the next what I'll be writing, I'm just making it up as I go along, and trying to end each day's writing (or each chapter, if it feels like a good place for one) with a cliffhanger. Both for practice at writing a cliffhanger and also because it gives me a hook for the next day's writing session.

I haven't worked on any other fiction this week, alas. I'd hoped to do so but it just hasn't happened. Maybe next week, now that I'm less worried about getting my novel writing done. I don't feel as much pressure now; I still don't think this novel is going to amount to anything, but I feel a lot more confident in my ability to get it down on paper (or carved in electrons) in a reasonable amount of time.

Quantity, as the Soviets used to say, has a quality all its own. Let's run the numbers, shall we?

• On my worst day so far, I wrote 1,736 words. So 1736 words x 30 days = 52,080 words. More than long enough for many an epublished novel, based on my research into various epub sites, but not really enough for a dead tree novel from a New York Publisher. Even so, if I take two months to write a novel at that rate, at the end of sixty days I'll have 104,160 words. Now we're talking!
• My best day so far clocked in at 3,855 words, or 115,650 words in 30 days. That's more than enough for a New York published novel.
• My six day average is 2,670 words. Over a month, that adds up to 80,115 words, or somewhere in low-to-mid range of words for a novel from a New York publisher.

All of this is a long-winded way of demonstrating to myself that writing a novel length story is well within my power. It's something I've worried about. I've never done it before, but experience will go a long way toward convincing me (and my skeptical subconscious) that it's possible. And that's good.

Why? Because once I've demonstrated to my own satisfaction that I can, in fact, write a novel-length story, I can spend more time and attention on making it a good one. One step at a time, baby. One step at a time.

Project: Strange Attractors
New Words Written: 3,277 (good)
Present Total Word Count: 16,023 words
Goal: 50,000 words by November 30




Stories in Circulation: 12 <---one less today because...
Rejections: 20
Stories Accepted: THREE! <---...I sold another one!