Hey everyone! Week 1 of NaNo is done! 

I’ve somehow managed to stay on track so far. 

If you don’t know, NaNoWriMo (NaNo for short) is an annual contest where you compete against yourself to write 50,000 words in a month. The idea is to write an original novel although in recent years NaNo has really loosened up on their rules so participants can have more creative freedom in their writing. 

Unfortunately my sleep patterns are suffering because I don’t have time to write until late and there have been many times where I don’t start writing until 11pm. My normal bedtime is 9:30pm so I’m really struggling to stay awake as I type every night. 

So far my story is going okay. So I ended up changing a huge part of my story’s setting at the last minute. Normally when I write I create words but then I decided that dystopian Chicago was the perfect setting instead. Which is great but now I have huge plot holes everywhere as I try to figure out how this affects the story. 

Otherwise the characters are great, the story is moving along (if you ignore the changes I decide to add while writing), and I’m meeting the daily goals(for the most part)! 

While writing I’ve mostly been sitting at either my home office desk or on my bed. I have a laptop that I connect to a bigger second screen on my desk or can move to my room if I feel like. I want to sit at the desk because that feels like more along the lines of what a real writer would do but sometimes I just want to be ready to go to bed right away. 

On the first day I made my word count but barely, because I was watching the new Netflix series The Crown. Then the second and fifth day I was in no hurry to write so I started very late and only got a few words in on the actual day. So there have been a few days where I write a ton more so I won’t fall behind. 

My goal is to try and get ahead. To do so I plan out everything I want to write or change in my head during the day so when I get to my desk I’m ready to write. I don’t have plans for this Sunday so I’m going to make it my writing day if I can. We shall see! 

Let me know if you’re participating in NaNo this year, how it’s going, and if you want to be writing buddies! 

Thanks for reading!