NaNoWriMo

It's winding down now, only about nine more days left. I'm so woefully behind, but this year for me's been rather different. I'm accustomed to having loads of free time around this time of year which meant I could pretty much write whenever I want. This year, very different. Having the nephew with me during the day for nine hours takes about thirteen hours out of my day when you factor in traveling and getting ready. He's nine months now, so he's at that stage where he's on the move a lot and constantly getting on his feet. So far he can only stand on his own for about seven seconds so he uses furniture to help him walk around and that really divides your attention. Plus all the other fun stuff that comes with babysitting and his fascination with my laptop - fun times. It doesn't bother me to have him, but boy does it turn your schedule upside down! Everyone doing NaNo this year with kids, I salute you. Seriously, because it's hard work! And it really draws on one's energy when you're not in the greatest of health, and trying to fix that is a job within itself. Throw in a dog amongst all that...you learn a few things about good time management, opportunity and being flexible.

I actually ended up changing my NaNo story about a week in. My original story (which I'll probably continue after this story is finished) was The Bone Witch, a fantasy with Norse, viking, barbarian inspirations. I temporarily petered out on it because of lack of clarity about how the world works. I'm not much of a pantser, I have to at least have a basic idea of how my world functions before I dive right in and this one kept shifting on me. At least enough to affect story outcome. It's bubbling just under the surface right now and when I can get back to it I'll work it all out. So this year's story switched to another fantasy called Dragon Eggs. It's coming about in a much different format than I'm accustomed to writing; each chapter alternates between current events in the story and past events that led up to it. I'm not quite sure how well this is going to work out, but we'll see how it goes. It's certainly fun to write, and for the first time I overwrote a chapter by about three thousand words. I usually manage to keep them around the five thousand mark, give or take a few hundred words, because it helps me keep a tab on my overall word count. Plus it seems like a good length, not too long and not too short. Well see how it fares in the rewrite. New territory is always fun to explore.

Word count unfortunately is sitting at a sad 13000 words (though I'm kind of proud at landing on such an even number). I'll post tomorrow how much that's changed.