November 2024 Writing Update

Woops. Looks like I got a little too carried away with National Novel Writing Month, to the point where I forgot to do non-novel writing. Isn’t that novel?

Anyway, I kept pace for November, actually averaging well above 1,500 words per day. Unfortunately, though, brevity is not a word in my vocabulary. Keeping that same pace of roughly 1,500 words per day (admittedly slacking a bit under it on average once November had passed in full) I don’t think I finished writing draft two until about December 12. Overshoot of nearly 50%, it seems. Oh well.

But draft two was conquered with force! And, if I do say so myself, with a decent degree of confidence. I personally feel this draft is much more cohesive than the previous. And I mean this in terms of plot, theme, and character. Things got a bit tonally inconsistent for the first draft of my whodunit, which I honestly blame on timeline. It simply took me way too long to get through that first draft without having a change in headspace and mental vernacular once or twice. I could even feel it at certain points, injecting much more humor into chapters that I know I would have treated with much more gravity a month prior. But, this also can be chalked up to inexperience. I found myself much more able to keep internal consistency on draft two for tone.

Now, was this because I wasn’t making up the 5-%-80% portion of the novel as I went this time? That probably has a bit to do with it, yes. But it’s also upskilling, as the loons on LinkedIn say. Anyway, I’m rambling. There’s more to talk about in the December writing update, which I may be publishing tomorrow. Oops. Definitely didn’t miss that one too…