Keep Calm and Write On

Well, it's the second day, and I'm still on schedule. For me, that might just be a NaNo miracle.

I'm trying something a little new for the plotting and outlining of my novel this year. I started out by using PBW's [URL="http://pbwstories.blogspot.com/2006/07/single-novel-plotting-template-this.html"][COLOR=#756c00]block plotting method[/COLOR][/URL] to help me hammer out the basics, then I split my story into thirty chunks, each with a sentence or two detailing what needs to happen. They're not scenes, because several of them include more than one scene. But as long as I write a chunk a day, and average around 2000 words or more per chunk, then I'm on target.

I'm about to stop for lunch, and so far I've hit my 4000 words, but am only two thirds of the way through the chunk. It's not a problem, I'll finish it tonight, and hopefully it will make up for some of the lighter chunks, when 2000 words would be stretching the action further than it wants to go.

So, lunch, then an afternoon playing with the daughter (shortly to return from nursery) and doing housey things, then an evening drinking peppermint tea and utilising [URL="http://writeordie.drwicked.com/"][COLOR=#756c00]Write Or Die[/COLOR][/URL] to get my last 1500 or so words. So far, so calm.

Of course, I'm only writing this down so that in a couple of weeks, when I'm 10,000 words behind on my wordcount, my outline has been tossed, rewritten and tossed again, and I'm mainlining espresso, I can look back and cackle at my early, misplaced optimism.