Almost There!

Looking at the clock and seeing it's 6pm should NOT illicit an "Oh my God! Only six hours to NaNo!" reaction from me. I'm set. I'm more than set. I have two outlines done, just in case I need a second one. I've just finished my Excel sheet for the first novel to track the word counts. I'm about to print out the outline so I can have it set up and ready to look at. I'm printing it out by chapter, and some of those chapters only have three or four lines of info -- but it will help me feel as though I'm making progress when I can remove a page from the pile as I finish the chapter.

I have it worked out to about 310 words per entry of the outline. That's not bad, but it may be high for the amount of info in each entry. I have a 100,000 word goal, but I think I should be looking closer to 90,000 or a little less for this novel. I'll know once I get started writing. If my count keeps coming in lower than the 310, I'll know that I haven't got enough material to reach 100,000 and adjust my per entry number down to about 275 or so.

Yes, yes. Too much math. But it actually helps me stay on target and think more about what I'm writing and what each of those entries represent. And it gives me -- like the page per chapter -- a feeling of progress as I work.

I'm really happy to see NaNo finally hit. I do have just a few more things to get done, but nothing drastic. I'm excited about this!

Good luck to everyone in NaNo. Remember not to stress too much. This is fun. No one is going to have their life ruined if they don't make 50,000 words -- but every word you write is more than you would have had without NaNo.

I'll be over in the NaNo chat room at Forward Motion tonight, and probably for many nights to follow. Come over and discuss work, if you like: http://www.fmwriters.com/chat.html

Good luck and have fun!