Day 1: 1667 words gets me a Jaffa Cake.

I'm not going to post EVERY DAY about how well or badly I am doing at this NaNoWriMo thing, but I'm going to do a Day 1 blog because my enthusiam levels are still relatively high!

So far, I have written 1742 words - just over the given daily target of 1667 - so I'm going to stop for a bit and interact with the children, cook dinner and so forth. This is a good progress I think and I'm surprised that it has come as easily as it has, especially considering the hangover I started with this morning. I certainly haven't been sat here crying against a blank Word doc, which is what I was afraid of.

I've been writing in bursts, trying to get between 250 and 500 words done at a time. This is great for fitting in the writing between chores and dovetails very nicely with an online app called Write or Die which lets you input a time limit and a target number of words before gently nagging at you when you stop. Surprisingly effective. Obviously, not having a day job puts me in a rather luxurious position for this sort of thing. If I were to actually write all day, like it was a job or something that I was good at, then 1667 would be a feeble effort. But it isn't just about smacking your fingers against the keyboard. The words still have to come from somewhere. Again I've been pleasently surprised.

The two short scenes I've written today were both entirely new to me and they have allowed the rather cardboard characters from my vague plot outline to begin to push back a bit against my expectations. This has got to be how it works - whilst I do have a plan, I can't have everything exhaustively mapped out. If I knew absolutely what is going to happen then I wouldn't need to write it.

Hopefully I haven't stopped for the day either. Any word surplus I can build up this week has got to be a good thing, especially with some of the upcoming November fun I have to look forward too.

Above all it is a relief to be writing and it feels wonderful to have the time officially ring-fenced for writing in. And Jaffa Cakes are great motivators.