It’s seventeen days into NaNoWriMo and I’ve crossed the halfway threshold. But before I continue this post, I need to mention a few quirks about my personality.

1. I might be slightly competitive.
2. I’m an overachiever.
3. I hate pressure (aka: I was never that person who waited till the last minute to finish something. I can’t handle the stress).
4. I’m an overachiever.

All of this is to preface the fact that only 17 days into NaNoWriMo I have…

52,000 words! Woohoo!

Okay, so I have 52,000 words of … something. I wouldn’t call it a novel. In fact, I’m nowhere even close to the end of my story. I’ve vomited words all over the page and didn’t look back. I’ve moved forward knowing full well that everything is underdeveloped. I’ve used five sentences to express what I could have said in one. And frankly, a good third of these words are exposition as I told myself the story. It’s absolutely true that I wrote this waaaaaaaaay too fast.

But for me … I’m pretty sure I had to write this way. Crazy fast. Turn-my-brain-off fast.

Normally, I don’t write fast at all. I’m a thinker. I analyze every word, every motivation, every possible way a scene could end. I stare out my window for hours considering how a single choice might change the trajectory of the entire book. My editor brain has a ridiculous hold over my writing process. I discovered early on that the only way I’d have the slightest chance of succeeding at NaNoWriMo, was to shut my editor out and write so fast she couldn’t catch up with me. (I’m the kid in that picture, and my editor brain is the T-rex!)

No thinking. No spell checking. Just go!

This was a very freeing experience! That childish joy I felt from week one didn’t disappear. But I know my joyful vomit of words is going to catch up with me … revision looms ahead. When my editor brain gets a chance to look at this “novel”… well, it isn’t going to be pretty.

But for now, I’m going to bask in the simple achievement of it. 50,000 words is nothing to sneeze at.

And for those of you still slogging away toward your 50,000 word goal. Keep at it! I don’t want my insanity to deter you. I can 100% guarantee you that you are writing a better crafted and more thoughtful novel than me!

Keep writing.

Tags: NaNoWriMo, Writing Fast